Verizon Video Confirms Telecom Cable Damage From Sandy

Last week, I wrote about my ride with "disaster forensics" expert Alexis Kwasinski as he assessed damage to New York's telecom infrastructure in the wake of "Superstorm" Sandy. Touring the most devastated areas, Kwasinski identified several central telecom offices that had flooded during the surge. One was a Verizon office in lower Manhattan, a block from the World Trade Center. Kwasinski suspected that since the office had lost power during the storm, its copper telecom cables had lost the pressurized air that is normally pumped into them to keep water out. When the surge struck, the seawater likely seeped into the depressurized cables, damaging the copper wires.

Turns out Kwasinski was right. He pointed me to this video, recently released by Verizon, explaining the equipment damage and what the company is doing to repair it.

Verizon says the restoration process provides an opportunity to upgrade many of its copper cables to fiber.