With the Myanmar cyclone dominating headlines worldwide, AT&T was in Chicago yesterday demonstrating to hundreds of its corporate customers how it responds to natural disasters.

AT&T conducts four disaster-recovery exercises per year around the United States to test its ability to respond to hurricanes, wildfires and man-made disasters, such as terrorist attacks. In its latest exercise, AT&T pretended its central office switch in downtown Chicago was unavailable, so it set up mobile units at Soldier Field.

AT&T says its disaster-recovery assets are the best in the telecommunications industry. They include 170 technology trailers, 130 support vehicles and more than 400 generators on wheels.

"I don't think there's a competitor that has what we have as far as investment in disaster-recovery assets," says Mark Francis, vice president of global network operations and network disaster recovery. "We have probably spent over $500 million. We have a dedicated team of people who are disaster-certified. . . . All of my folks have gone through OSHA requirements and been certified."

Since Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, AT&T has beefed up its disaster-recovery systems and procedures by integrating the disaster-response efforts of all the communications companies it owns, including SBC, Bell South and Cingular, into one organization. 

"We don't have three separate companies setting up commands and three different companies managing the incident and working with local officials," Francis says. "The efficiencies we've gained give us the ability to get into an area faster and get set up faster."

AT&T also doubled the size of its hazardous-materials team and added cell-on-light-trucks to its fleet of emergency-communications trailers since Hurricane Katrina.

"If the equipment in one of our buildings is dead but local law enforcement says there's a gas leak and we can't get in there, we have the certified folks that they would let it," Francis explains. "We needed hazmat teams during Katrina . . . and on 9/11. We've doubled the number of people we have qualified."

AT&T's network disaster-recovery team has 30 full-time dedicated staff plus 65 hazmat-certified engineers and 135 trained volunteers around the country. "But if it's a Category 4 disaster, everyone is a volunteer. I can have anybody that I need,"  Francis says.