The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to the East Coast is really heart wrenching, but there’s nothing humans cannot overcome, no matter how grim.  New York is slowly recovering, pumping out flood water from buildings, clearing up streets of debris, trying to salvage ruined belongings –  everything its citizens can do to sort things out.

People are still suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, as it knocked out about 25 percent of cell towers across 10 states, which until now, have left a lot subscribers without network coverage.

“This was and still is a devastating storm with a serious impact on our nation’s communications infrastructure,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.  “The storm is not over. And our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile networks because of the flooding and loss of power.”

One company that can attest to the prowess of Hurricane Sandy is Verizon, whose lower Manhattan facilities were hit hard with the storm surge.  Three-and-a-half floors of their five-level basement are still submerged in brackish flood water.  The storm breached the protective plugs that surround cables coming into the building, and resulted in flooding of the critical basement “cable vault” that takes in communications cables and directs them to switching gear upstairs, which, fortunately, wasn’t damaged.  But their Broad Street facility received the most damage, as Hurricane Sandy left it inoperable as water flooded critical electrical equipment.

Helping people recover

To help citizens of New York and New Jersey, AT&T and T-Mobile announced an agreement that would help subscribers of both networks to get coverage from both companies.

The agreement stated that “AT&T and T-Mobile customers will be able to place calls just as they normally would, but their calls will be carried by whichever network is most operational in their area. This will be seamless for AT&T and T-Mobile customers with no change to their current rate plans or service agreements even if the phone indicates the device is attached to the other carrier’s network.”

Another Good Samaritan is Comcast, who offered their Xfinity WiFi hotspots for anyone to use, regardless of being a subscriber or not, to several states affected by Hurricane Sandy.  Xfinity WiFi hotspots are located both indoors and outdoors in malls, shopping districts, parks, and train platforms but if the area has no power, it’s highly unlikely that the hot spot will be up and running.

Users just need to look for the “xfinitywifi” network name, click on the “Not a Comcast subscriber?” link at the bottom of the “Sign In” page, select the “Complimentary Trial Session” option from the drop-down list and they can connect to the internet.  The complimentary sessions are renewable every two hours until November 7.