Sprint Nextel, Other Carriers Quick to Help at Disaster Scene

Sep. 13–When evacuees are fleeing one way, Matt Foosaner often is heading the other.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was no different. Foosaner, an emergency response leader for Sprint Nextel Corp., dozens of colleagues from his company and hundreds of other specialists from the telecommunications industry rushed to the epicenter of the recent crisis on the Gulf Coast.

The hurricane’s ferocious winds, surging waves and widespread flooding decimated land line, wireless and even two-way radio networks from Florida to Louisiana.

The telephone companies focused initially on helping police and rescuers communicate. They have been providing phones and Internet links for evacuees trying to get messages to family members in other evacuation sites or other states. The companies also are shoring up equipment and making repairs to their networks, a massive undertaking certain to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The scope of the disaster eclipses that of so many other catastrophes.

“The flooding and security issues truly are unprecedented,” said Joe Farren, director of public affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association in Washington. “The fact that we have people being shot at is obviously a major hindrance.”

Foosaner, senior director for Sprint Nextel’s emergency response team, and his crew are no squeamish tenderfoots when it comes to dealing with mayhem. They have provided communications support for nearly two dozen presidentially declared disasters, the recovery of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the task force operation pursuing the Washington-area snipers in 2002.

Still, none of this prepared them for what they confronted in New Orleans.

“It is immense and it is intense,” Foosaner said toward the end of another long day directing response operations in Louisiana last week.

A near-apocalyptic landscape of gas and chemical leaks, victims’ bodies and obliterated buildings has left many of the former military members now working for the Sprint Nextel unit comparing the scene to war zones.

“They were stunned,” Foosaner said. “It was like Mogadishu and Somalia.”

Getting help to the injured and residents trapped on roofs while floodwaters rose was more difficult for rescuers who found that many of their radios and phones did not work in the early days of the disaster.

“Without communications, these folks cannot coordinate,” Foosaner said.

Before joining with Sprint, Nextel Communications Inc. built up a big business with public safety officials and government agencies relying on the company’s push-to-talk technology that makes wireless phones operate much like walkie-talkies. Sprint Nextel also has a service called Direct Talk, a communications system that doesn’t require the use of the wireless network. It operated in New Orleans and Gulf Coast areas where other wireless service was spotty.

Sprint Nextel has distributed more than 4,000 phones to emergency crews, police and government officials. The devices with the Direct Talk technology have been in high demand, particularly among law officers responding to looters and criminals in the New Orleans area.

“Our initial efforts were to help restore law and order,” Foosaner said. “The Direct Talk unit will be in one hand and the gun will be in the other.”

Safety concerns throughout New Orleans have complicated repair efforts. Sprint hired more than 60 armed security guards who accompany crews on repair runs.

With more than 300 Sprint employees and contractors in Louisiana, the company clustered recreational vehicles, equipment and other facilities into an area dubbed “Sprint City” at the Louisiana State Fairgrounds in Baton Rouge.

“We probably would rate a ZIP code with the amount of people we have here,” Foosaner said.

Sprint and other carriers stockpiled equipment in nearby warehouses and put crews on alert in the days before Katrina struck. Many brought “cell on wheels” trucks and other vehicles able to increase wireless coverage in areas where cell sites were disabled.

“We had widespread outages everywhere the power went out, which was everywhere,” said John Taylor, a Sprint spokesman. “As soon as the winds died down, we began working to restore coverage.”

Cell sites are equipped with battery and generator backup systems. Generators were refueled when possible, but flooding blocked access to many of them.

Sprint long-distance customers primarily in one part of Florida experienced service disruptions when a key switch in the New Orleans area that handled their calls was damaged.

“That was a total loss for us,” Taylor said. “The facility was 8 or 9 feet under water.”

Wireless networks also were disrupted because they are connected to land-line telephone networks that also were severely affected by water problems.

As Patrick Kimball, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless , put it: “Water is very tough on electronic equipment.”

By the end of last week, the wireless companies had restored service almost to normal conditions in Florida and Alabama. Coverage in Mississippi was improving, though some regions still had limited service.

The situation in Louisiana on Monday appeared to be improving as well, though areas near New Orleans continue to experience problems. Sprint, for example, reported restoring wireless service to more than 60 percent of Louisiana.

Telecommunications companies have been in such a scramble just to get the phones working again that they have yet to tally all damage, or the eventual repair bills, but they expect to know soon.

“It is hard to characterize at this point, and we are not really focused on what the eventual cost will be,” Verizon’s Kimball said. “Our concerns are more immediate with re-establishing the network. The communities need it. The relief agencies need it. Our customers need it.”

When they come due, however, those bills are sure to be big.

BellSouth Corp ., an Atlanta-based phone carrier with extensive operations in the region, is among the hardest hit. The company could be facing expenses of $500 million, and possibly more, according to an assessment by Citigroup analysts.

Sprint Nextel also could face a sizable bill. Last year the hurricane season brought Sprint $148 million in damages just in Florida.

In addition to focusing on their wounded networks, communications companies also have been reaching out to their employees and residents forced to evacuate.

Sprint is working on a plan to reassign some employees who were directly affected by Hurricane Katrina to other jobs. The company also said it would continue paying employees “through this difficult time as the situation is assessed,” Sprint said in a statement.

The Federal Communications Commission ordered wireless carriers to maintain service to customers displaced by the hurricane despite a failure to pay bills. Postal service and Internet service that many consumers use to pay bills have yet to resume normal operations.

Many communications companies, including Sprint, are allowing people to stop at their retail stores to place essential calls. The carriers also are providing phones, phone cards, replacement batteries and repair assistance to many of the people who have been evacuated or displaced.

AT&T is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish centers providing free local and long-distance calling.

The communications networks have a high-profile part to play in this disaster, especially for family members who were separated.

“It is playing a vital role in reuniting families and helping people reconnect to start on the road to recovery,” Kimball said.

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