North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake

  • From: jc dill
  • Date: Wed Aug 31 04:05:19 2005 
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."