Miles of copper is ruined not only in the cable vault at Broad Street, but also at 20 or so manholes around the area. Even worse, paper insulation in the copper wiring sucks water through the cabling from capillary action, destroying cabling even in dry areas. Levendos says it’s “far too tedious, time consuming, and not effective of a process to try and put this infrastructure back together,” so Verizon’s taking the opportunity to rewire with fiber optics instead. Service has been restored to FiOS customers for over a week — unlike copper, fiber optics aren’t damaged by the water. As part of this process, crews have already pulled fiber up the major corridors — including Water, Broad, and Pearl Streets — to ultimately connect the fiber network to buildings.
Despite the progress, huge challenges remain. While fiber optic cabling weathered the storm, the electronics that send light through them are vulnerable to water. Verizon has to analyze the extent of damage done to equipment in buildings they serve and see how much work remains to hook up areas without FiOS. Once fiber is brought to a building’s doorstep, workers still must bring service to each and every unit. Verizon wouldn’t give me a number, but thousands served by copper-based phone and DSL remain without service to this day in Lower Manhattan. For them, the wait will surely continue as the process of bringing fiber up floor by floor progresses….
While #Sandy and recovery from Sandy may have taken central focus this month for small businesses in NYC, I wanted to remind Maker businesses of the current challenge being offered by Mayor Bloomberg and the NYCEDC for small and medium-sized businesses to make a case for getting free fiber build-out for high-speed broadband in the ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge:
Small and medium-sized commercial and industrial businesses across the five boroughs are invited to compete for free fiber wiring.
Contestants demonstrating the highest potential impact of fiber connectivity – on their own business, nearby businesses, and underserved areas – will become finalists. Finalists will have a chance to win a free build-out of fiber internet connectivity to their place of business, an overall value of up to $7M for all winning businesses.
To enter, all contestants must obtain a signed landlord agreement providing ISPs with access to the building if they win. If selected a winner, contestants will be required to sign a one-year service contract with a participating ISP at negotiated market rates before they are eligible to receive a free fiber build-out.
This is a particularly useful challenge for displaced and now permanently resettled businesses to take this opportunity to get an internet infrastructure leg-up for themselves and their neighbors by taking the extra effort to get an application in on time. And take a moment to look over the resources here, including the Industrial Business Zones map for areas that are offered a special track in the challenge.
The impromptu charging station was set up by a company called BioLite, which enables users to “cook dinner and charge electronics anywhere, with just a handful of kindling.” We’re told that the stoves can charge a cell phone in the time that it takes to charge up your phone using a laptop. The stoves can also be used to power LED lights.
Glad to hear you guys are back up and running. If you come across any specific individuals that have need for small-scale solar and/or battery power, we are happy to help with deep discounts and or direct donations. Our warehouse in NJ got power back Friday and we are trying to be helpful where we can.
Jeff Crystal http://www.voltaicsystems.com/
They have deep discounts they can do direct donation as it makes sense. Please write to sandy@voltaicsystems.com for details if you’re still in need of power.
Adafruit is 100% operational – Back and shipping today #sandy above an early am panorama of the Adafruit shipping area before the staff arrives. It’s great to be back in business.
Back to business – 1/3rd of the shipping completed #sandy. We get an extra hour today (Daylight saving ended) so that will be helpful. There isn’t any heat yet but we’re all dressing warm. We placed a big order for food from a local restaurant that was really happy, for a Saturday night – it’s still taking time to come back to life.
We’ll post more updates as we reboot and rebuild.
For the first time in about a week we don’t need to carry our “go bag” from place to place, stock piles of batteries, bottled water, snack-bar, solar panels, mintyboosts and flashlights everywhere. Well, we still carry some of those Monday the city will mostly be back, our thoughts are with the people and businesses that are still struggling to get back after this event.
Thank you everyone for the kind words, support and orders – it all helps!
As the city of New York struggles to get back online in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, many companies and start-ups are trying to regain their footing and restart operations.
The problem is, much of Lower Manhattan, where many are located, is still without power and Internet. But entrepreneurs, engineers and developers aren’t letting that stop them. They are camping out in one another’s apartments and offices in an attempt to still get a day’s work done. Of course, any place with a humming Wi-Fi connection, whether a coffee shop or an Apple Store, seems to be drawing displaced workers eager to get back into the swing of things. But camaraderie spurred by the storm seemed to knit the New York start-up scene together a bit tighter.
As we re-boot and get back to business after being without power, net, heat, etc for the last week. We’ll do a series of posts about what we’re doing to not only help our employees displaced by Sandy but what we’re doing in the local area and NYC to help people and businesses. One employee is going to stay at another place for a bit, their apartment might not be habitable for awhile, we’re going to cover the rent for them while they get back on their feet with a new place – all employees, hourly and part time are getting paid for the week we were out as well. We had one new person who was going to start on Monday of last week but could not, we’re going to give them a week’s pay so they don’t need to worry about any bills piling up.
On a more tasty note – One of the hardest hit types of business around here in NYC were the restaurants, we’re trying to see which ones could use a boost as we work some late hours and get delivery or stop in. We’ll try and see who needs some business in our area and post about them here too.
Widespread cellphone service outages across the region hit by Sandy, with some carriers performing better than others depending on the location, are giving those debates new urgency.
In the East Village and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of Manhattan, where power has been out since Monday night, signals on the AT&T Inc.’s T -0.46% network were hard to find during walk-throughs conducted by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday and Thursday. Verizon Wireless’s network performed a bit better, with calls going through in much of the area.
In interviews, several residents corroborated those findings, saying that Sprint NextelCorp. S +1.60% and T-Mobile USA signals were elusive as well and that they used their neighbors’ Verizon phones when they had to make calls.
Sprint and AT&T were completely down for about 5 days in the areas hardest hit (where we happen to live and work). Verizon was up most/all of the time.
Update: Power is restored in 2 out of 3 Adafruit location in NYC (no internet or heat in all locations yet, but we’re thrilled to have power!). Our factory now has power, 2 of the 3 internet connections are down but our high-speed microwave dish based internet is up and running. The building is cleared for our staff to safely return and we will resume shipping soon once we assess any damage to the facility. Right now it looks like we’re out about $100k in revenue from orders being canceled and/or less orders during the downtime. We had some server downtime, but we’re back now too. This is the first time we’ve been able to get in our factory in over 5 days. Most/all staff will be coming in to ship orders as fast as possible and we’ll be working around the clock to resume all operations.
Thank you for patience during this event, the kind words and support from everyone continues to fuel us!
Update: No Ask an engineering or show-and-tell tonight – no power #sandy. We will update again today, power is coming back to parts of lower NYC today, we’ll keep everyone updated!
As we approach our 5th day without power here in lower Manhattan, I wanted to update our users on how we’ve fared here at Octopart during Hurricane Sandy.
Our team members are all safe and doing well. Watching the images of destruction puts into perspective the small inconvenience of walking uptown to charge my phone battery. Our hearts go out to all who were affected.
As the storm approached on Sunday evening, this image made a strong impression.
Where’s your server at? If you’re using EC2 you may want to know how to pack your bags and jet in case of an emergency! We have been using ServInt with no interruption in services – thanks guys!
Update: Parts of southern NYC getting power, no power at Adafruit yet. Our home now has power so we’re getting back there now but our building in SoHo is still without power due to the explosion on 14th street. The expected time for power restoration in 1-2 days.
Pictured above, the current subway outage(s). NYC also canceled the marathon on Sunday.
We’ll keep updating, the good news is – we return home tonight and there is lights. Next up, Adafruit factory we hope!
Pictured above Ladyada navigating up and down the stairs without power at home office and later riding bicycle checking in on our factory without power in SoHo, NYC. Empty loading docks
Adafruit is still without power today, it is estimated that it will be back on within the next couple days – but there are a lot of unknowns and damage to the area(s) we hope to get our staff back in once the power is back on and the building is cleared to be safe.
We are not shipping today, but once we get power and net access we’re going to work 24/7 to get all orders out. We are working with the building management, USPS and UPS to resume shipping the moment it’s possible.
The latest from Con Edison“ALL of lower/mid Manhattan is expected to be back by Saturday.”
Ask an Engineer and show-and-tell is canceled for Saturday 11/3/2012. If we happen to get power and net we’ll broadcast us shipping and making products. We had a few new product launches that are now delayed, but we’ll get back to them the first possible moment.
Thank you again for all the support, concern and patience. We will keep updating. The customers, community, partners and everyone out there are amazing, thank you thank you so much.
Update: Adafruit is still without power. We are in the zone of Manhattan that is still without power. Con Edison the power company is currently reporting“Power restoration for the majority of Manhattan without specific water damage to buildings should be Fri/Sat. We do not know if our building(s) have water damage yet.
Thank you for all the support and patience during this event, we appreciate it – we have the best customers and community. The kind words and offers of help and assistance have been heart warming to everyone here at Adafruit.
Power is out all over the coast in Brooklyn, including at my house near the Gowanus Canal (picture above from Monday night outside my building, taken by my neighbor). Don’t worry, I have friends with power nearby and my neighborhood is no longer flooded, but there are plenty of reasons I’d like to be hanging around my own home– the fridge’s food needs cooking, the pets, the projects, the neighbors and repair folks, etc.
So here’s what we did to power the devices I need to continue writing to you folks!
On hand I had a solar lipoly Minty Boost, which worked well for a while when the sun was out. Made from:
To charge my laptop, 4G hotspot, phone, and light up the room all at once I’m using a deep cycle battery and power inverter. I’m trying not to blast my Hulu so loud that it makes my neighbors jealous– by our estimates this rig should be powered for 40-60 hours, after which I can just swap it for another charged battery from down the street.
Consolidated Edison Inc. officials said the utility serving the New York City area is first focusing on repairing feeders distributing power to the New York Stock Exchange and then restoring power to networks at the southern tip of Lower Manhattan.
For customers in other darkened neighborhoods below Midtown, where power was knocked out Monday night by an explosion at a substation on East 14th Street, the path toward power remained a mystery on Tuesday morning.
With winds settling down to 15 mph to 30 mph, Con Ed faced the daunting task of restoring service to more than half a million New York City residents left in the dark by the storm.
More than 230,000 Con Ed customers in Manhattan’s lower half remained without power Tuesday morning. Widespread power failures also plague Staten Island, with nearly half the borough’s energy customers in the dark.
Everything below 39th street in Manhattan is still dark, no power, net or cell here, we have a few more Mintyboosts left, but we’ll be running out of power soon
Here are some photos around Adafruit Manhattan area after #sandy. We have two locations we are working from since we’re in the middle of a move, both are without power or internet (we have 2 Wi-Fi hotspots, one works but not all the time now).
Everything in Manhattan from 39th street down does not have power due to an explosion at 14th according to what we were told. Both our locations are safe and secure, all the Adafruit staff is home with friends and family. We will continue to update on the blog, Twitter and Google+ the best we can.
For those sending in your support, placing orders and good thoughts, thank you!
-Ladyada and the Adafruit team
Update: 3:56pm 10/30/2012 – still no power or net for Adafruit FiDi or SoHo. We are told the NYSE will be open on Weds. and there will be limited train service starting at 5pm tonight. We will continue to post updates.
Printable catalog (PDF)
Monday the city will mostly be back, our thoughts are with the people and businesses that are still struggling to get back after this event.
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