AT&T Leaves New Orleans Unable to Contact 911 During Hurricane Ida

AT&T, for its part, has been pushing to restore its cell service across the region. Early Monday, the company said that 60% of its wireless network was fully operational—and when contacted by Gizmodo, a spokesperson pointed to its latest blog post noting that its wireless network in Louisiana was operating at 85% of its normal capacity. They added that “the numbers have been improving,” and that AT&T plans “an additional update later today.”

Other telco operators are reporting similar numbers in Ida’s wake. On Monday, T-Mobile publicly stated that it reached 70% of functionality across all of Louisiana. Verizon’s most recent numbers put it at 85% functionality, with the company noting that “hard hit areas that were experiencing loss of service yesterday are now fully or partially restored.”

Of course, it’s Louisiana isn’t a stranger to dealing with downed power lines and 911-center outages in the wake of a massive natural disaster. In the wake of hurricane Katrina back in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission actually put out a massive tome detailing what the agency had “learned” in the aftermath of the storm that had left so many power grids and phone lines downed. Per the FCC’s report, Katrina knocked out close to 40 911 call-centers across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama., along with over 1,000 cellphone sites. An estimated 20 million phone calls didn’t go through. We’re still trying to piece together the tens of billions of dollars in damage that Ida left in its wake, but hopefully, we’re going to see AT&T face the FCC’s line of fire sometime soon.

Correction 5:13 PM ET: A previous version of this story stated that AT&T’s current coverage at 70% capacity, not the 85% as the company’s blog suggests. We regret the error.