Doug Dawson: Hurricane Helene Is Breaking the Blog Streak

Editor's note: This is Doug Dawson's blog post on POTS and PANs from October 4, 2024, and is reprinted with permission.

It was bound to eventually happen that I would miss a day of posting a blog – but I never imagined it would happen this way. I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and we were nailed by Hurricane Helene. I feel like one of the lucky ones in that the family and our house is fine. We’ve heard that 72 local people lost lives and there are still more missing. Immediately after the storm hit a week ago, we lost power, Internet, cell service, and soon thereafter water.

We knew Helene was bringing rain. Before the storm, NOAA had forecast this area with 12 to 15 inches of rain – we got that and more. The flooding was terrible and there will be a long recovery. There are towns and neighborhoods that were fully submerged, and some are completely gone. The nearby River Arts district, home of artist studios, breweries, restaurants, and businesses has been devastated.

There is major damage to infrastructure. The water mains between the City and the reservoir were washed away. Restoring water means first rebuilding the roads that are gone. There are bridges gone that have closed the Interstate highways. There are places along Interstate 40 where much of the road has disappeared. There are numerous mudslides to clear. There are tons of neighborhoods that are now isolated since their roads were washed away.

The unexpected part of the hurricane was the wind. The forecast called for peak gusts of 40 miles per hour. But Helene strengthened in the gulf before reaching shore. I’ve been through other hurricanes, and I would guess that the peak winds were 70 miles per hour, maybe a little more. After two solid days of rain before the winds got here, tens of thousands of trees came down. I’ve seen streets here that were reminiscent of hurricane damage in the Caribbean with poles down everywhere.

We’re a tourist town, and any tourists unlucky enough to be here took it hard. Most hotels had to evict guests when power and water failed. There were no restaurants open downtown, no cell service, and a limited number of places with minimal WiFi. The airport closed and all roads leaving the City were blocked.

Everybody expected to lose power – a common event in a city of trees. But people were shocked when cellphones died and for three days the only calls that could be made were to 911. Even now, a week later, I’ve not seen more than two bars of cell signal. I’ve often seen cellular touted as a backup when landline broadband is down – but when the fiber networks that feed cell sites are decimated, the wireless coverage leaves along with normal broadband.

My neighborhood got power back on Wednesday night thanks to the 15,000 technicians that have converged on the area. But there is still more work to be done, and folks a block away still don’t have power. We’re all hoping that the ISPs will now be following the electric repairs and fixing our broadband connections. I’m still having trouble with basic things like opening and responding to an email. It’s hard to hold a cell call for very long.

Everybody is concerned about the next few months. It sounds like water is going to be out for weeks, maybe longer. It turns out that having water to flush toilets is a big problem. The grocery stores and gas stations are reopening, but we know with damaged Interstates that it’s going to remain a challenge getting food, fuel, and necessities. It’s hard to imagine how folks in the cut-off neighborhoods will cope until somebody rebuilds their roads.

There is always a bright side to balance out gloom and doom. We’ve been having neighborhood cookouts to make sure that everybody gets some hot food. Neighbors are all helping neighbors, and there is a renewed sense of community. I’ve met and made new friends that will long outlast any bad memories of the storm.

Doug Dawson, president of CCG Consulting, has worked in the telecom industry since 1978 and has both a consulting and an operational background. He and CCG specialize in helping clients launch new broadband markets, develop new products and finance new ventures. Dawson also writes the daily blog potsandpansbyccg.com, which covers a wide range of topics for broadband and related subjects.

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