Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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Communication
The destruction to communications companies' facilities in the region, and therefore to the services
upon which citizens rely, was extraordinary. Hurricane Katrina knocked out more than three million
customer phone lines in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The wire line communications network
sustained enormous damage—dozens of central offices and countless miles of outside plant were
damaged or destroyed as a result of the hurricane or the subsequent flooding. Local wireless net-
works also sustained considerable damage—more than a thousand cell sites were knocked out of ser-
vice by the hurricane. At the hurricane's height, more than thirty-five Public Service Answering Points
(PSAPs) were out of service, and some parishes in Louisiana remained without 911 or enhanced 911
(E911) service for weeks. —Dr. Robert Miller, “Hurricane Katrina: Communications & Infrastructure
Impacts,” April 2008
Modern communications systems are something we tend to take for granted, until they fail or
are no longer available. When a disaster strikes, outside of taking care of any pressing safety or
survival issues, what is the first thing most people try to do next? It is usually either to call
friends and loved ones to assure them that you are okay, to check in with them to see if they are
okay, or to try and tune into some kind of news channel to find more information concerning
the disaster. Information might be key to your safety and survival, and it is certainly critical for
helping you to regain peace of mind.
Important incoming information might include flood alerts, evacuation orders, boil-water
orders, severe weather alerts, chemical spill information, etc. Important outgoing information is
usually along the lines of assuring family and loved ones that you are alright, calls to emer-
gency medical services, and calls to report safety issues such as downed power lines or trees. In
this day and age, when panic attacks are common each time Blackberry phone service goes
down for a few hours, whenever the landlines, cell phones, and Internet all crash at the same
time, the general level of anxiety and panic rapidly escalates. Since we live in the information
age, when information services go down, there is a tendency for people to project and expect
the worst!
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