Pacific Northwest Storm Gentle on Telecom Networks; Verizon Used Drones Post-Matthew

Washington state suffered no telecom outages in a storm that blew into the Pacific Northwest over the weekend, a Utilities and Transportation Commission spokesman said Monday. Meteorologists had predicted dangerously strong winds, but the storm wasn’t as bad as expected. Multiple surveyed carriers reported no problems from the weather in the area. “The storm turned out to be much weaker than expected,” said a Sprint spokesman. Carriers faced a bigger challenge from Hurricane Matthew, which struck the Southeast coast the previous weekend (see 1610130033 and 1610110038). Verizon used unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to inspect flooded cellsites in the Carolinas, the company said in a news release Friday. Verizon deployed Measure UAS quadcopters that can record and live-stream HD video and high-resolution photographs, it said. “The first flight to a site surrounded by water near Elm City, N.C. and the Tar River Reservoir showed engineers that the base station equipment -- which was elevated on stilts -- was not underwater and had not suffered visible damage,” Verizon said. “After determining the site was safe to access, Verizon’s Network team secured an air boat and refueled the generator, bringing the site back into service within hours.”