The devastating wildfires in Hawaii have caused at least 55 deaths and widespread damage, particularly in the city of Lahaina on Maui, as well as communications outages because cellular towers have burned.
Carriers have already been deploying support for first responders and residents to get communications back up and running.
AT&T said Friday that its Network Disaster Recovery Team and FirstNet Response Operations Group has put up a Band 14 portable cell site in Lahaina and that it has AT&T employees on the ground, with more people, network equipment and FirstNet-capable devices on the way. AT&T is shipping in backhaul equipment and other deployables from neighboring islands, the company said.
“There are still wireless network impacts in areas directly affected by the fires, primarily in western Maui. Elsewhere on the island where our network is not impacted, we encourage customers to minimize traffic by using text messages as much as possible and to prioritize critical communications,” AT&T said in a statement. “Where it is safe to do so, we have deployed portable generators to our cell sites affected by power outages and will continue refueling until power is restored. Some of our cell sites are inaccessible at this time due to the fires, however, our teams continue to plan for immediate restoration efforts.”
According to published reports, none of the four major fires on Maui, which broke out on Tuesday, are fully contained yet. In an online update on the fire response posted at 2:45 a.m. Friday, the county said that firefighters were continuing to extinguish flare-ups and contain fires in Lahaina, Pulehu/Kihei and upcountry Maui. Some cellphone service is available in the hard-hit area of West Maui, according to the update, which urged residents who had a cell signal but could not make a call to try texting instead.
Verizon posted an update yesterday that said that network service was being impacted on Maui due to power and fiber damage caused by the fires. The areas of impact were mostly in West Maui: Lahaina, Kaanapali, Napili and Kapalua. Verizon said that it was mobilizing emergency network assets including mobile cell sites and deploying aatellite-based mobile hotspots in evacuation centers. “Larger assets were transported by barge from Honolulu overnight and will be deployed in areas of greatest need,” the carrier said.
AT&T said that all of its employees on Maui are safe, and that it has activated its Employee Relief Fund for disaster assistance for them. The company is also waiving overage charges for its postpaid and prepaid customers in affected areas through August 16.
Verizon is offering unlimited calling, texting and data for its prepaid (including Tracfone) and postpaid customers who live on Maui through August 23. T-Mobile US said on Tuesday that the company was offering unlimited text, data and calling in specific zip codes through August 14; RCR Wireless News has reached out for an update on T-Mo’s network status and will update this story accordingly.
