Fergie's Tech Blog

When Rita Came Calling

Sarah Lacy writes in BusinessWeek Online:

SBC Communications Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson had just finished a presentation at an investors' conference in New York City. With Hurricane Rita headed ever closer to the coast of Texas, SBC's home state, Stephenson cancelled afternoon meetings and rushed back to headquarters in San Antonio to prepare for a disaster.

Weeks earlier, Hurricane Katrina had affected more than 800,000 lines served by BellSouth, the main local-telephone carrier in the Southeast, and inflicted as much as $600 million in damage. SBC was doing everything it could to protect both employees and operations as Rita homed in.

SBC, the No. 2 U.S. phone company, began tracking the storm more than a week in advance, says spokesman Michael Coe. Days before the projected landfall, it encouraged 2,000 Houston-area employees to evacuate, setting up an Intranet site where they could link with host families elsewhere in the company.

posted by Fergie @ 9/26/2005 07:14:00 AM