BURNSVILLE, N.C. – As cell phone service continues to be disrupted in areas affected by Hurricane Helen, survivors wonder about safety, missed emergency alerts and the inability to reassure far-flung friends and family. I’m holding a
Helen caused power outages across large swathes of the South due to both high winds and flooding. The destruction also destroyed cell phone towers, potentially cutting off communications for millions of people. The lack of service is evident throughout the area, with dissatisfied residents clustered near the few sites that offer Wi-Fi or spotty cell phone service.
In the aftermath of the storm, 355 residents of the town of Red Hill were unable to call to check on the safety of their loved ones. They couldn’t get news about road closures, who had gas or generators, or who needed help.
“No one knew if we were alive or dead,” said Casey Smith, 28, who owns Red Hill General Store.
Mobile phone companies have a wide range of emergency replacement systems that can be deployed, from antennas mounted on trucks to antennas carried aloft by drones to antennas mounted on electric mountain bikes.
However, in all of these cases, physical access to the affected area is required, and the affected area is still undergoing recovery.
“When your cell phone service goes out, you really feel cut off, no joke,” said Jonathan Salley, a senior official at the National Center for Disaster Risk Reduction at Columbia University’s School of Climate Change.
“We’ve developed an extreme dependency that wasn’t there 20 or even 10 years ago. Everyone is spending a lot of money on utilities like utilities, electricity, gas, mobile phones, internet, etc. “So if you’re paying for something, you have hope. With this much funding, it’ll be up and running quickly,” he said.
One of the big challenges is that disasters are occurring more frequently, and when they do occur, it costs more to recover on average. This means higher costs for governments and mobile phone providers such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
Experts have long warned that America’s infrastructure, from cell phone towers to power grids to highway bridges to drinking water systems, is vulnerable to disasters.
Since 1980, the United States has suffered nearly 400 weather and climate disasters, each costing more than $1 billion, with total damages exceeding $2.8 trillion, according to federal officials. This does not include Helen or July’s Hurricane Beryl. Some experts say the hurricane hurtled across Texas and then into New England, causing an estimated $30 billion in damage, cleanup costs, lost wages and lost tourism revenue.
“The downside is we’re seeing more storms,” said Shannon Weiner, director of emergency management for Monroe County, Florida. “The advantage is that we are better able to accommodate them because of our partnership.”
Weiner, whose county includes the hurricane-prone Florida Keys, has worked in the emergency management field for 20 years. He said Monroe County began incorporating cell phone carriers as part of its annual regional planning exercise after Hurricane Irma in 2017 knocked out phone service, downed power lines and destroyed roads. .
“I think people’s expectations have changed,” Wiener said. “They expect us to respond more quickly, to respond more quickly.”
Americans expect help to arrive soon
For many older Americans, the idea of always being connected may still feel like an unnecessary luxury. But experts say younger generations and many older adults themselves rely on reliable cell phone service and always-on internet access to survive. Many people work remotely or need access for healthcare or small business operations.
This connectivity has changed Americans’ expectations about how quickly services like power and internet access can be restored after a disaster. Thule said a 2015 survey found that 51% of Americans expect someone to help them within an hour of a major disaster, up from 32% about 20 years ago. That’s what it means.
Following Beryl, it took more than a month for power to be restored in some parts of Texas, and at least seven people were reported to have died from the heat.
Helen hit Florida on Thursday night before moving inland, knocking out power from Florida’s Big Bend through Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and into Virginia. More than 200 people have been killed in the storm, and that number could rise as the search continues.
Hindering efforts to tally the death toll: Lack of cell phone service makes it difficult for survivors to contact authorities. At one point, authorities said about 1,000 people were missing, many simply because they could not be reached.
Aware of the loss of connectivity, federal authorities dispatched 40 Starlink Internet terminals to the area to assist. Small enough to fit in a backpack and easily powered from a generator or SUV power outlet, the device provides high-speed Wi-Fi service via a constellation of privately owned satellites.
THOR and other equipment readily available
Among the solutions that providers like Verizon are deploying in the Helen disaster area are trucks like THOR, a giant mobile cell system officially called the Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response Vehicle.
Built on a Ford truck chassis, the THOR system features two satellite dishes, two folding cell phone towers, waist-high tires, and that unmistakable Verizon red paint job. It is also equipped with a drone that allows operators to fly into the sky and send further cell signals. Workers also installed Starlink satellite terminals on battery-assisted mountain bikes, allowing them to access areas inaccessible to vehicles.
To keep it safe between missions, Verizon built THOR into an old limestone mine buried beneath rolling hills near the Missouri River in Independence, Missouri, about 300 miles from the geographic center of the Lower 48. It is stored in When disaster strikes, THOR and other trucks are dispatched. We will exit the mine, connect to a nearby interstate, and restore service as soon as we arrive.
THOR was not deployed to Helen because of the road damage; instead, Verizon sent 70 other pieces of equipment, including a tethered drone that served as a temporary skyscraper cell tower. Verizon has a small crew working to restore service, including more than 1,000 contractors helping clear roads, the company said.
“We’re making great progress every day,” said Jonathan Montenegro, Verizon’s associate director of engineering for Florida, who is helping rebuild the Helene area. “We ask everyone to be patient and understanding…We may not be able to live video stream, but at least we can make phone calls and send messages to our loved ones. We understand.”
In addition to THOR, Verizon has several similar trucks, small camper-based systems, robotic dogs, and drones stored in underground storage, which Tony LaRose, Verizon’s associate director of network assurance, said. I like to call it the “bat cave.”
From Independence, Verizon will send THOR and other recovery vehicles east or west along I-70 to cover Tornado Alley, or south on I-49 into Texas. or help track hurricanes to the Gulf Coast. The company also has equipment warehouses across the country.
LaRose said the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri killed more than 150 people and caused $2.8 billion in damage, including throwing a semitrailer more than 300 feet and throwing a school bus into a garage. After that, I came up with the idea of storing equipment in the basement.
“I kept imagining a tornado hitting my area and destroying all the equipment,” he said. “We are putting people’s lives at risk. People have to use their phones to call for help or to let their families know what’s going on with them.”
Actual situation during preparation
Other mobile carriers have similar equipment. For example, AT&T built a 45-foot-long custom-built ship after having to use barges to float cell phone equipment to service Sanibel Island off the coast of Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022. built a lander.
Additionally, retailers like Home Depot are stockpiling plywood, generators, and other salvaged materials across the country. Earlier this summer, Home Depot also announced a new partnership to better support Americans living in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during this year’s hurricane season.
Most mobile phone base stations are equipped with emergency generators that can operate independently for several days, and power companies across the country are working to “harden” their power lines against disasters.
For example, Florida Light & Power has installed 76% of its main lines serving critical communities and services underground or otherwise strengthened them to withstand storms, and has removed nearly all of its major power transmission poles. It says everything has been replaced with steel or concrete structures.
Still, in the days since Helen’s death, thousands of residents in Florida’s Big Bend region remained without power.
Salley said many utilities are slow to prepare, which could mean charging customers more or cutting profits. He said local governments and some states are also reluctant to provide sufficient funding for the era of cascading disasters. For example, Helen knocked out power in parts of North Carolina, but also destroyed drinking water systems.
“We haven’t done many of the upgrades that we know we need to make in this country,” Salley said. “There is a fundamental lack of preparedness and there is no real sign of it changing. Being prepared is costly.”