Verizon Communications Inc. executives said yesterday that the company's equipment near the now-destroyed World Trade Center suffered severe damage and that hundreds of businesses may not have telecommunications service fully restored for days, if not weeks.
A water-main break flooded operations at a 12-floor Verizon communications center adjacent to the trade center. The building handled 200,000 telephone lines and millions of data connections. Its walls had been breached by the collapse of the World Trade Center complex. Tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment is covered with soot and dirt, but building engineers determined that the facility is structurally sound, company executives said.
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Verizon is attempting to reroute telecommunications traffic around the facility until operations can be restored, the officials said. But the full impact of the damage will be difficult to evaluate until the company hears from customers as they begin returning to work today.
Equipment in a second Verizon building, which provides most of the telephone service for the New York Stock Exchange, is running on auxiliary power and probably will not be able to handle its normal complement of calls when the exchange opens tomorrow or Monday.
"We can deliver about 80 percent of the local traffic to them," Verizon Vice Chairman Larry Babbio said during a news conference yesterday. Verizon is the largest provider of telephone and telecommunications service in Manhattan.
Initially, Verizon reported that it had emerged from Tuesday's terrorist attack relatively unscathed, but the full extent of the damage became more clear yesterday as officials and technicians got a closer look at their facilities. Many businesses were closed yesterday and remained unaware that they no longer had phone and data service.
In addition to the damage to Verizon's buildings near the World Trade Center, technicians also are concerned about damage to Verizon's underground lines, which have been through the equivalent of several small earthquakes as the two 110-story buildings collapsed. Babbio declined to discuss how much the company might have to spend to restore its facilities.
Telecommunications companies including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint reported that call volumes remained high yesterday, after one of busiest days in the history of their networks.
An AT&T spokesman said the calls spiked within minutes of the first report that a jet had crashed into the one of the World Trade Center towers. AT&T reported that 431 million calls were made over its networks, although about 13 percent of those calls were not completed because of congestion on the lines. On a normal day, AT&T handles about 300 million voice calls.
Traffic also was high on the wireless and other networks, several companies have reported.
Cell-phone networks were particularly taxed in Manhattan, where millions of people were directly affected by the attack. To boost coverage in the areas of New York City most affected Tuesday, several mobile-phone companies have moved temporary cellular antennas into the area or redirected nearby antennas.
Rescuers said the lives of many victims still trapped in the rubble depend on good cell-phone reception. Public safety officials said several people were able to call from the collapsed buildings to let others know they were still alive.
Yesterday, Verizon and other companies repeated their requests that the cell-phone users refrain from making calls with them in Lower Manhattan unless it is an emergency.
Many of the regular emergency 911 calls had been routed through the Verizon building in Lower Manhattan, but the company shifted the calls to another facility almost as soon as it heard of the two attacks, said spokesman Eric Rabe. Most 911 calls were completed with little difficulty, Rabe said.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell, who has been briefed by executives at several firms yesterday praised the performance of the nation's telecommunications companies.
"I am grateful for the tireless and heroic efforts of those in the telecommunications industry who are working hard to keep our most fundamental communications systems -- such as telephone service, wireless phone service and television service -- operating efficiently under the circumstances," Powell said in a statement released by the agency yesterday.
Long-distance companies including AT&T and Sprint reported that their facilities were not damaged in Tuesday's attack. But equipment serving a small group of businesses that subscribe to AT&T's local telephone service was destroyed. The equipment was in the basement of the twin towers.
One industry executive, who did not want his name used, said he was also concerned about a nearby building at 60 Hudson St. that hosts telecommunications equipment of several companies. The building is in an area of Manhattan that remained blocked off yesterday, and the executive warned that if companies did not get access soon it could lead to disruptions in long-distance and international connections.
