[83920] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jc dill)
Wed Aug 31 04:04:26 2005
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:02:40 -0700
From: jc dill <lists05@equinephotoart.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <20050830.124605.14961.209879@webmail27.lax.untd.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
> Telephone companies struggled to restore service
FYI - if you are trying to reach someone in the impacted area who has a
cell phone but you can't get thru because "all circuits are busy" then
give SMS a try. I exchanged 8 SMS messages[1] between 15:58 and 16:21
PDT today with a friend in Baton Rouge that I had been unable to contact
via email or phone since after the storm passed. SMS went straight thru
with no noticeable delays. If your contact has a working cell phone
(hasn't run the battery dead or gotten it wet) within reach of a working
cell tower, you may be able to at least get word that they are OK.
jc
[1] A brief summary regarding conditions in Baton Rouge (BR):
"Kind of Crazy in BR but nothing damagewise like in NO and in
Mississippi. We have a large number of our NO employees who evacuated
to our BR office. They cannot return home - they can't even start
repairs there until the water is pumped so they are helping us restore
service to the BR area. For the latest info see the Katrina Blog at
wwltv.com."
