Internet connection has become a household pillar powering everyday essentials, from education to healthcare. But when it comes to disaster scenarios, it’s become a vital lifeline. Emergency response depends on effective communication — that relies on connectivity.
While firefighters and medics work to protect lives, network disaster recovery teams restore the connectivity and power that keeps responders coordinated and communities connected when it matters most.
Kelly Morrison has worked on these recovery teams within incident command for over 25 years — overseeing response efforts, coordinating logistics and ensuring communication infrastructures are restored.
Few incidents underscored the need for these networks like 9/11.
He spent three weeks on site during the crisis, both as B shift incident commander and gathering A shift documentation. Taking site photos and videos, he worked “shoulder to shoulder” with other response agencies like firefighters and paramedics.
Communication among first responders led to issues during the attacks. Not long after that, the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) was formed to help develop and manage a dedicated wireless broadband network specifically for public safety.
“In my mind, 9/11 definitely was a life changer for me because of the level of that disaster, but it didn't take me away from wanting to do this work again,” Morrison told us in an interview. “To be able to contribute and give something back is enormous, and I think most of the people on our team feel that way.”
Today, recovery teams are facing more storms than ever, with hurricane twins Helene and Milton devastating several states in the Southeast and wildfires wreaking havoc in California (well outside of the traditional wildfire season).
But thousands of people are showing up to support, from various levels and roles within AT&T.
“There's so much value in helping people and actually being able to do something, as opposed to sitting on the sidelines and just watching," he explained. "Is it easy to see some of the sites we've seen? Absolutely not, but you're there to help. And that, I think, for me at least, is what makes it sort of balanced.”
Inside look: base camps and incident commands
When disaster strikes (or imminently looms), the base camp serves as the backbone for all the work recovery teams do in impacted neighborhoods.
This will include a command center for folks like Morrison running the ship, as well as sleeping trailers, food and water stations, deployable equipment and more — like a “corporate camping trip,” as Morrison described.
It’s important not to rely on communities impacted by these disasters for resources, so they come in with their own tools, supplies, food and water to be self-sufficient. And that has only expanded in recent years with bunk trailers, shower trailers, laundry services and more being added for Covid compliance.
Equipment continues to evolve too. “Back 25 years ago, when you were in the field, you might have a Garmin device for mapping, but if you're out of coverage, you're out of coverage,” he recalled. “But now our individual response trucks have always-on internet connectivity.”
Morrison listed another “lesson learned” from Hurricane Ian in 2022, where the landing craft boats they were using were slow and had little carrying capacity — limiting what they could provide and how quickly. Today, their boats are ultra-fast and can carry all the deployable equipment they need. Every event presents new ways to “take rough edges of the stone," said Morrison.
In 2024, Helene and Milton (and this year's L.A. wildfires) were no exception.
“If it’s a large event, we all go... For a response like Helene, it isn't just my group of 40 or my group of 40 plus 400 volunteers, it's literally thousands of network employees that can be applied to the task, because they'll bring in network technicians and engineers from across the country into an impacted area,” he detailed. “The scale of the response is phenomenal.”
They tackle the work in rotations so as to avoid keeping people in the field for months at a time, reaching out across the span of the company.
“We needed a lot of people,” Morrison said, and they tapped folks from all kinds of backgrounds, from technicians to retail workers.
Because people with varying roles and levels of experience come in to help, disaster response training is crucial.
Readiness training — before and after
Alongside incident command operations, part of Morrison’s current role is to look across the company to find folks raising their hand to help and prepare them. The company is set to start another training round as storm season approaches — though with unpredictable weather patterns, they have to be ready all year round.
The training is less technically complex and more focused on response readiness and self-sufficiency.
“Part of the training we provide: we expect people to arrive in an area with the supplies and the equipment they need to be self-sufficient for up to three days,” he said. “Because it's going to take us sometimes a while to set up a base camp where we would be able to support them that way.”
Readiness training also stresses getting comfortable in unusual environments, prioritizing safety and hygiene in realities like flooding and fires. “Some people who join the team come right back off because they're not comfortable in those kinds of environments, and that's totally okay,” he said. “It is a challenge sometimes to be in an area like the L.A. fires, where you see that level of devastation.”
Morrison explained that, beyond just his team, the company provides support for members after these incidents, working through their experiences and encouraging healthy processing of their time on the response teams.
Technically speaking, the expectations for these crews are, in many ways, easier than what tower technicians and other fields techs are used to — with technology that is preconfigured and ready to install.
But along with telecom connectivity, they’re also helping people regain power, bringing generators to affected areas, so the volunteers with field experience are often the most well-suited to some of the work.
“The folks I enjoy working with the most that come out for us are the people that have field jobs already," he said. "So they're comfortable with using tools, they're comfortable working on electronics."
But those coming from non-field roles like customer service are still able to meaningfully contribute. “You don't need to be a Bell Labs person,” he noted. “But to have a basic understanding of how it works and to be ready to take on the next evolution of it” will set you up well.
Morrison has also found that field techs are used to the industry’s rate of change which primes them well for these environments. And that constant evolution is part of what he loves most about his job.
“For me, if it were the same sort of job, describing the same equipment, the same processes I was doing 20 years ago, it would not be interesting,” he concluded. “My job isn't the same this year that it was last year. It's just going to continue to change. And it's cool, it keeps it fresh.”
Interested in exploring job opportunities in fiber optics? Check out our jobs board, training portal and Learning Center // For incident management, check out the National Incident Management System (NIMS) training offered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).