Sunday, December 27, 2020, 4:15 p.m. CST
The AT&T building on 2nd Avenue suffered significant damage in the blast. That facility includes connection points for regional internet services as well as local wireless, internet and video. In the hours that followed the explosion, our local service remained intact through temporary battery power. Unfortunately, a combination of the explosion and resulting water and fire damage took out a number of backup power generators intended to provide power to the batteries. That led to service disruptions across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. More than 48 hours later, some customers are still experiencing outages. We know it is frustrating and we apologize for the inconvenience. We also thank you for your understanding.
What has made network restoration so difficult is doing it while maintaining the integrity of an active crime scene in cooperation with federal and local law enforcement. Hundreds of employees – our own AT&T employees as well as first responders – have stepped in over the last two days to restore service. We’ve restored power to multiple floors in the building and deployed over 25 temporary satellite cell towers and 24 additional trailers of disaster recovery equipment across the impacted area.
Given its importance to customers and first responders, we prioritized restoration of wireless service. As of now, 96% of our wireless network is restored, 60% of our business services are restored, and 86% of our consumer broadband and entertainment services are restored. It is our goal to restore all service late today.
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