The other night I watched a movie of a type that I don’t usually watch. The mega-disaster flick “2012″–all 2 hours and 45 minutes of it. I was just in the mood for something bordering on the ridiculous for my entertainment Friday night. And there were enough cities falling into the ocean, helicopters flying around, cars flying through the air, etc. to satisfy my “guy flick” urges. As long as I didn’t think about it too much…
Obviously the script writers weren’t thinking about it too much either. Many character interactions took place in the middle of earthquakes, tidal waves, cities sinking into the ocean–get this–ON CELL PHONES! Conventional landlines were there too–always working, always reliable–characters could hear every word and stress point in each other’s voices. This points out just how much we rely upon our communications infrastructure, and take it for granted that it will always work, come hell or high water (in this case, VERY high water).
While I don’t want to point out the obvious, the reality can be much different in a real disaster. Most communications companies really try to create reliable service, and take great pains to ensure redundancy of systems to prevent outages based on equipment failure. WOW! takes pride in the fact that our telephony products have a 99.999% availability, disasters and all.
And we’ve had a few. Several years ago in Evansville and directly south, a freezing rain weather event destroyed much of the outside plant for both communications and electrical power. Connections to cell towers, switching centers, and customers were damaged or destroyed. One of my engineering staff who lives south of the Ohio was out of power for 5 weeks as crews scrambled to rebuild the damaged grid. It does beg the question, “What can I do to be able to communicate in a ‘disruptive’ event?” Here are a couple of suggestions:
1) Be sure you have an older analog phone handy that doesn’t require power to ring, and accepts “talk battery” from the network. One of the older Bell Western Electric models is good to keep around for this purpose.
2) Keep the batteries in your WOW! equipment maintained and in good shape. These batteries will sustain an EMTA (with or without conversation) for at least 8 hours if they are maintained properly. Periodically, WOW! will send out a notice regarding a scheduled or indicated battery replacement–don’t ignore those notices. Just get it done.
3) If you live in an area prone to weather events which cause power disruption, consider the purchase of an emergency generator. Like it or not, we depend upon power for much of our modern necessities in most homes, including communications. A portable generator can keep cell phones charged, as well as internet and voice communications up and running, not to mention refrigerators, freezers, furnaces, etc.
4) Get to know your neighbors. Pooled resources locally in a time of disruption can make everyone more comfortable and safe.
Invite them over to watch a disaster movie 
Until next time…
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