From Cell carriers tackle Katrina damage:
Mobile phone operators Thursday were gearing up in the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina to restore cell phone service, the only communications lifeline for some of those displaced by the disaster.
Service was out on Thursday across much of New Orleans and the parts of Mississippi and Alabama hit by the storm. Where cell phones did work, circuits often were jammed and callers turned to text messaging to communicate, according to Jim Gerace, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless.
The mobile operators would be more crucial over here. More people have mobile phones than fixed lines. Are our telcos ready with the disaster recovery procedures necessary to bring communications back online?