AT&T Wireless 2011 Annual Report Download - page 26

24 AT&T Inc.
communications. Within hours, recovery teams
and vehicles descended on Joplin and went right
to work, just as they’ve responded to a variety of
other natural and man-made catastrophes.
The tornado hit at 5:41 p.m. Sunday evening.
By 1 a.m., our network disaster recovery team had
deployed a mobile satellite cellular tower to one of
Joplin’s most critical sites — the heavily damaged
St. John’s Regional Medical Center — and by
Monday afternoon began providing wireless service
for medical and emergency personnel and others.
Meanwhile, dozens of local AT&T employees
stepped up to help. Three of them were later
recognized for their heroic efforts with our
company’s highest honor for customer service —
the Whitacre Award, named for former AT&T
Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre:
Jeff Dawson worked tirelessly to help those
who lost phones, batteries and chargers to get
reconnected as quickly as possible. He led the
effort to open three temporary locations —
one was open within 48 hours — and provided
charging stations for use by nearly 20,000 people.
John Divine worked 16 to 18 hours a day for
30 straight days, playing an essential role in
restoring service to emergency workers and
government organizations. Under his guidance,
we were able to restore critical services to
Freeman Hospital in less than 18 hours; within
48 hours he had provided the network designs
that helped bring many other emergency
service locations back online.
Billy Rice directed the deployment of four “cell
on wheels” mobile cell towers and 14 portable
generators to restore service to cell sites that
had lost power. Thanks to his leadership, within
days service levels in the Joplin area actually
exceeded what was available before the tornado.
Thanks to the unflagging efforts of our people —
those who are trained to respond to such a crisis
and those who were simply acting on a sense of
responsibility to a community in need — wireless
capacity was at 95 percent of pre-storm levels
within 37 hours, while connections to key
locations were restored in a matter of days.
(left) May 22, 2011: Eyewitnesses said the tornado
that hit Joplin was “like an atomic bomb.”
(above) January 26, 2012: There’s optimism and
rebirth in the air as the people of Joplin rebuild.
In Memory …
Among the many lives cut short by
the Joplin storm were two of our
employees: Regina Bloxham and
Sharyl Nelsen. They were members
of our AT&T family. We miss them.
And we won’t forget them.