Storm Damage in Cahaba Heights

      I'm an AT&T employee and the following is my opinion. 

     Today is Sunday, May 1st, 2011.  You'll remember in my previous blog that our strong storms came through last Wednesday morning and late that evening.  I remember that because it was my off day from work and the company elected not to request my presence.   I believe at that time, we were four days out on troubles.  That just means that if your phone was out of service(oos) and you called to repair service, they would have told you it would be repaired in four days!  Most are very unhappy with commitents like that and don't understand.  Well, it's like this... we're a little short handed.  Our employee staffing levels are down about 25% since the purchase of BellSouth.  Furthermore, the company focus has been on installation and repair of their Uverse television/internet service.  Repair commitments for that service are in the opposite direction at only about two hours, once a ticket is handed off to us.
     I said all that to help you understand that even two & three days after the storm, we were still repairing troubles called in before the storm.  I had one customer, who was so irate with the company commitment, their anger overflowed toward me.  I had to explain that I was only there to fix their problem and that I was sorry it had taken so long.  Their anger was with the company and not me.   Customers tend to have short fuses when their communication is out of service, expecially when a home business is at stake. 
      Today, our local group of technicians were forced to come in to work and it was declared that we had to work 12 hours, then it was changed to 10 hours.  We could come in a 7am and we must take a full hour lunch(wasted time) and then get off at 6pm.  We are from the Montgomery district and the district we're helping is Birmingham.  We found out from their technicians that today was voluntary work for them!  They were only forced 12 hours overtime total for the week. 
          Today, four days after a one-two storm punch with multiple tornado's, I finally was sent to work in Cahaba Heights.  It is technically now Vestavia, AL, but the neighborhood is still called the Heights.  I was literally shocked at all the telephone cables on the ground!  I only took one damage picture all day, but they all would look pretty much the same.

 In the picure above, you'll notice a large oak fell across the street breaking the pole and knocking all the lines down.  The power company has already set a new pole and their lines are back up.  The telephone cable and cable televison are still on the ground, damaged beyond repair.  Construction will have to replace at least two spans of 50 pair cable.  It takes one pair for dial tone, so that cable can serve 50 customers.  It you went back down the street and turned left, there was a 200 pair cable cut and down for four spans.  At the next street, if you turned left then right, there was a 1200 pair cable on the ground with four large Alabama Power trucks working on attaching to a new pole at that corner.  All this was within six blocks of the central office.  I was told the heavy damage was more toward Rocky Ridge and also up Overton Road.
     When I called dispatch to report the problems, there wasn't a cable failure ticket even made for that damage.  People, this is four days old!!! Now in the old days, back in the 1900's, before AT&T, storm restoration was different!  Management would send technicians out to sweep a neighborhood and there would be a master list of repair opportunities with the larger cables repaired first.  In other words, you would gather information, set priorities, plan your actions, and work your plan.  
      I was surveying this damage when a technician from my group called me.  He said a buddy in construction said to meet him at the Central Office and they would look at putting the cable back up, and both of us could splice it.  Wow, I thought that's awesome!  We might get this street back up by the afternoon.  But alas, it was not to be.  I drove over and didn't see any reels of cable.  I said, "you don't have any new cable"?  "Nope, it's on order"!  I thought to myself, "this is a sick joke"!  But no, he was right.  I knew it had been difficult for us to even get buried cable for repair when one was cut.  They rode out and looked at it and said they would have to come back when the new cable came in. 
     I'm just not sure about this "new" batch of telephone managers.  Maybe these new college kids just can't manage work in the real world!  Or maybe "cell phone managers" can't manage in the landline world.  It is possible, under these extraordinary circumstances, they should recall some real managers who've retired but still remember how to get things done.  Ask them to come back for just a little while till we get folks dial tone back. 
     I feel really sorry for the customers.  Please understand, all the hoopla about people only using cell phones has been exaggerated.  There are millions still paying for and using the good old fashioned landline.  Well, at least they could if we had some cable...
     One customer was taking it all in stride.  He said "fix it if you can, if you can't, I understand."  I was testing his line when he called and said, "when you finish that, come over here, I want to show you something".  I figured it was telephone related, but it wasn't.  He was proud of the bird nest under his carport.  He said he'd been running his generator at the back of the house so it would't disturb them.  That's pretty customer friendly and the four heads in the nest seemed to approve!