Planning Helps SBC Minimize Rita’s Fury

By Sanford Nowlin, San Antonio Express-News

Sep. 27–Despite damage to some of its phone lines and network facilities, San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc. and other phone companies said their advance planning helped them weather the wrath of Hurricane Rita.

Forty of SBC’s central offices, the buildings that house its switching equipment, were without commercial power Monday and using batteries or backup generators to stay in operation. Only one office, a small facility in the coastal town of Sabine Pass, was shut by floodwaters.

Spokesman Bill Palin said SBC still didn’t know Monday how many customers were without a dial tone, or how soon it would be able to restore service in areas with heavy damage.

“We know we have about 200,000 lines in the Beaumont area,” Palin said. “But it’s difficult to estimate how many people are without service until they start returning to their homes and letting us know.”

New York-based Verizon Communications, which serves phone customers in East Texas and along the Gulf of Mexico, estimated that 2,800 of its lines weren’t in service.

“We fared pretty darn well,” spokesman Bill Kula said. “And much of it was good luck and divine intervention.” Both companies said they began planning and staging for their disaster recovery about a week before the hurricane hit land.

The carriers were able to move trucks and equipment away from the coast and deployed crews to staging areas where they could quickly move in to make repairs when the storm passed. Those moves allowed them to minimize damage to their networks, officials said.

Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. is the largest phone provider in hard-hit areas across the Louisiana border.

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