Tag Archives: Hurricane Helene

Disaster Regulatory Policy

There has been a lot of talk over the last year at the state and national level about lowering the regulatory and paperwork barriers for ISPs building rural networks funded by BEAD grants. I don’t know any rural ISP that doesn’t think this is a good idea. Any efforts that can simplify processes like permitting, pole attachments, and environmental studies would be a big benefit for a rural construction effort.

There is another situation that probably warrants easier and simpler paperwork. Many communities have disaster and emergency plans that describe ways to ensure public safety and that government functions after a natural disaster. I think these plans should include ways to make it easier to restore electric utilities and communications networks after a disaster.

This topic came to mind as I am watching the stakeholders in Western North Carolina work to identify issues that hindered recovery and repair efforts after the region was devastated by Hurricane Helene. The damage from Helene was the worst imaginable for the communications networks. Power went down across the region. A lot of cell towers were knocked out of service. Over 1,700 miles of fiber were destroyed, including the backbone fiber paths that brought broadband to and from the area. Some roads were washed away by flooding, while many other roads were blocked by downed trees and landslides. Huge numbers of utility poles were knocked down or badly damaged.

As you might imagine, the local government’s ability to conduct anything resembling business as usual disappeared with the storm. Government communications were out like everybody else, and the local government properly turned its attention to public safety and getting people out of harm’s way.

Normal processes that would work after a less extreme disaster were not sufficient after this major disaster. For example, nobody at the local level was prepared to deal with the huge numbers of repair crews that poured into the area a few days after the storm. One issue that slowed down the out-of-town repair crews was the paperwork and contracts that had to be executed before a crew could begin to work. Local governments needed to identify incoming crews so they could eventually be compensated. Somebody had to verify that incoming linemen were certified to work in the power space. Incoming crews needed to provide proof that they carried the needed level of insurance. Even after an emergency, the local government wanted to make sure that crews understood any local ordinances and rules related to rights-of-way, safety, and other related issues.

Another issue that quickly arose was the paperwork and processes normally required for permitting and for rights-of-way. Permits are normally required for construction activities like digging up any portion of a roadway or erecting new utility poles. As every ISP knows, permitting means dealing with multiple government entities. The federal government controls Interstate highways, and in this region, the roads through national parks, forests, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The State controls access to state highways and roads through State parks. The county controls access to county roads, and cities control access to city streets that are not under one of the other jurisdictions. This region is also full of privately owned roads in rural areas. There were also the usual complications associated with working to cross bridges and railroad tracks.

There were also a lot of other questions that are being raised. For example, does it make sense to replace a washed-away cabinet or hut in a flood plain without elevating it or locating it outside of the flood plain? What’s the right way to rebuild infrastructure where the old infrastructure was completely washed away by a flood?

Local governments, utilities, ISPs, first responders, and many other stakeholders in the region are working this year to understand what could have been done better. For example, a lot of the required paperwork for incoming crews could have been done online in the cloud. But that would have required some agency outside of the region to process the paperwork. It would mean incoming crews from around the country would have needed to know where to find such paperwork. Some of the normal requirements for paperwork could have been relaxed, and that probably means creating an ordinance that gives city and county officials the ability to declare a communications emergency that would ease rules for permitting and construction. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is making any needed changes across multiple layers of government.

I’m impressed with the work being done in this region to look at improving our response to the next disaster. The discussions are going to continue throughout this year. The issues being discussed are things that local governments across the country should be thinking about – before they are struck by disaster.

North Carolina Provides Storm Relief

North Carolina announced a $50 million program to help ISPs that suffered damage a year ago with Hurricane Helene. The grants will be awarded through the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) Broadband Infrastructure Office. This is the same group that has been administering state broadband grants as well as BEAD.

The grants are available to ISPs who suffered damage in the 39 counties affected by the hurricane, plus the Eastern Band of Cherokee, who are in the far western part of the state. For anybody who has followed North Carolina and broadband, these awards are no surprise. North Carolina has been a national leader in broadband since the beginning. The state built the first state-funded middle-mile network that was designed to support broadband throughout the state and has been involved in promoting rural broadband for decades.

There is no question that networks in the region suffered big damage from the hurricane. In Buncombe County, where I live, 40% of all trees were damaged or destroyed. The hurricane devastated an estimated 822,000 acres of forests in the region. The flooding from the hurricane washed away entire towns, roads, and bridges. Mudslides wiped out a lot of homes and neighborhoods. Just within a few blocks from my home, dozens of wires were knocked off poles.

The area was aided after the hurricane by an amazing outpouring of help from across the country. Huge number of crews came in to replace poles and reattached wires. People who drove out of the area after the storm reported passing a non-stop caravan of utility trucks coming into town.

The quick fixes done by these crews were awesome and got the networks up and running. But anybody like me who always looks up at poles still notices a lot of work is needed to shore up the many quick fixes.

Network owners around the country might be wondering why this state grant funding is needed. In the past, FEMA has always stepped up to help utilities and telcos in disaster areas. Unfortunately, North Carolina has only received about 25% of the $59.6 billion estimated damage costs from FEMA. FEMA doesn’t ever pay all damage costs, but they have always paid a lot more than what Western North Carolina has received this time.

To be fair, Congress allocated a lot of funding for storm relief, but the money is not flowing. This seems to fall in the same category as other billions of dollars of federal money that aren’t making it to states for a huge range of issues.

To put the storm damage into perspective, the annual budget for the State of North Carolina was $29.7 billion in 2024 and $30.8 billion in the current fiscal year. There is no way the state could ever pick up the cost of a major storm.

Perhaps the money will eventually flow, but there doesn’t seem to be much movement on the federal side. The federal reaction to this storm should be a wake-up call to every network owner in the country. Everybody has gotten used to thinking of FEMA as the backstop for covering catastrophic damage. What happens if this is no longer true?

One of the best things about electric and communications companies is that everybody is willing to send crews to help after storm damage anywhere. But those utilities have always expected to eventually get reimbursed for a significant portion of that cost. Will utilities be so quick to send crews elsewhere if they have to fully foot the cost? I would hope so, but realistically, a lack of federal payment of disaster funds could put a crimp in the amazing system of mutual aid that benefits every community when they need help. And eventually, it’s going to be your community that needs the help.

Disasters and the Supply Chain

One of the unexpected consequences of Hurricane Helene is that it disrupted and shut down the high-quality quartz mines near Spruce Pine, North Carolina. This will cause a temporary disruption for the semiconductor industry.

One of the most important steps in making silicon chips and key components for solar panels is to melt down a highly purified substance called polysilicon. This can only be done in crucibles that don’t react with the polysilicon, and the best material for making the crucibles is the ultra-pure quartz that is mined at Spruce Pine. The mines there are said to have the highest-purity quartz in the world and most of the crucibles in the world used for making chips come from Spruce Pine.

The pandemic showed us how vulnerable the world is to disruptions in the supply chain of important materials. In the telecom industry we had some surprising shortages caused by breaks in the supply chain for raw materials. One of the earliest and biggest disruptions during the pandemic came from the shortage of the raw materials used to make the resins that are used as enclosures for telecom gear. Resins require polyethylenes, nylons, polycarbonates, and acrylonitrile butadiene (ABS). The supply chain broke for several of these key components.

A longer-lasting shortage in the industry crippled the manufacture of computer chips. It turns out that chip manufacturing relies on almost two hundred raw minerals like silicon, germanium, gallium, indium phosphide, boron, phosphorus, and many others. The worldwide supply chain issues shut down chip manufacturing when many of the raw materials became hard to acquire.

While major weather events can disrupt the supply chain, the impact is usually temporary, except when severe weather destroys key facilities that are part of the supply chain. There are many other causes of supply chain disruption including political unrest, labor shortages, high fuel costs, transportation restraints, and cybersecurity threats.

We are constantly reminded of the fragility of the international supply chain. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore killed the delivery of raw materials to numerous U.S. manufacturers. A recent rumor of a dockworker strike caused a shortage of toilet paper as consumers recalled one of the biggest early issues during the pandemic. Political unrest in Africa routinely cuts off major supplies of cobalt, platinum, and chromium.

Some supply chain problems are purely political, like when nations get into tariff wars and raise the cost of importing goods. Farmers too well remember the impact of the Chinese tariffs on U.S. pork that were imposed as part of a larger trade war a few years ago.

The newest cause of disruptions comes from cybersecurity attacks on companies. Corporations can be shut down for weeks or months as a result of major hacking. Many U.S. auto dealers suffered major problems a few months ago when CDK, a supplier of the software that operates dealers, was hacked.

One of the key characteristics of supply chain disruptions is that they are most often a big surprise. There is nobody who could have imagined the disruption of mining for ultra-pure quartz in western North Carolina. I’m sure that the folks running that mine would have sworn that such an event was unthinkable. What we’ve learned in recent years is that almost nothing is unthinkable anymore.

Breaking the Blog Streak

It was bound to eventually happen that I would miss a day of posting a blog – but I never imagined it would happen this way. I live in Asheville, NC and we were nailed by Hurricane Helene. I feel like one of the lucky ones in that the family and our house is fine. We’ve heard that 72 local people lost lives and there are still more missing. Immediately after the storm hit a week ago, we lost power, Internet, cell service, and soon thereafter water.

We knew Helene was bringing rain. Before the storm, NOAA had forecast this area with 12 to 15 inches of rain – we got that and more. The flooding was terrible and there will be a long recovery. There are towns and neighborhoods that were fully submerged, and some are completely gone. The nearby River Arts district, home of artist studios, breweries, restaurants, and businesses has been devastated.

There is major damage to infrastructure. The water mains between the City and the reservoir were washed away. Restoring water means first rebuilding the roads that are gone. There are bridges gone that have closed the Interstate highways. There are places along Interstate 40 where much of the road has disappeared. There are numerous mudslides to clear. There are tons of neighborhoods that are now isolated since their roads were washed away.

The unexpected part of the hurricane was the wind. The forecast called for peak gusts of 40 miles per hour. But Helene strengthened in the gulf before reaching shore. I’ve been through other hurricanes, and I would guess that the peak winds were 70 miles per hour, maybe a little more. After two solid days of rain before the winds got here, tens of thousands of trees came down. I’ve seen streets here that were reminiscent of hurricane damage in the Caribbean with poles down everywhere.

We’re a tourist town, and any tourists unlucky enough to be here took it hard. Most hotels had to evict guests when power and water failed. There were no restaurants open downtown, no cell service, and a limited number of places with minimal WiFi. The airport closed and all roads leaving the City were blocked.

Everybody expected to lose power – a common event in a city of trees. But people were shocked when cellphones died and for three days the only calls that could be made were to 911. Even now, a week later, I’ve not seen more than two bars of cell signal. I’ve often seen cellular touted as a backup when landline broadband is down – but when the fiber networks that feed cell sites are decimated, the wireless coverage leaves along with normal broadband.

My neighborhood got power back on Wednesday night thanks to the 15,000 technicians that have converged on the area. But there is still more work to be done, and folks a block away still don’t have power. We’re all hoping that the ISPs will now be following the electric repairs and fixing our broadband connections. I’m still having trouble with basic things like opening and responding to an email. It’s hard to hold a cell call for very long.

Everybody is concerned about the next few months. It sounds like water is going to be out for weeks, maybe longer. It turns out that having water to flush toilets is a big problem. The grocery stores and gas stations are reopening, but we know with damaged Interstates that it’s going to remain a challenge getting food, fuel, and necessities. It’s hard to imagine how folks in the cut-off neighborhoods will cope until somebody rebuilds their roads.

There is always a bright side to balance out gloom and doom. We’ve been having neighborhood cookouts to make sure that everybody gets some hot food. Neighbors are all helping neighbors, and there is a renewed sense of community. I’ve met and made new friends that will long outlast any bad memories of the storm.