Inside Verizon's Secret Florida Hurricane Preparation Facility

pcmag.com:

Hurricane season is here and Verizon is ready.

With experts predicting(Opens in a new window) 12 to 17 total named storms during the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from Jun. 1 to Nov. 30, Verizon is gearing up for the possible worst-case scenario at secret switch centers throughout Florida and other natural-disaster-prone areas across the country. 

On a recent sweltering July day, Verizon invited a small group of journalists, including myself, for a rare tour of one of its hidden switch facilities. These buildings are built to withstand Category 5 winds and contain the resources necessary to run off-grid for months if commercial power goes down, Verizon leads said. Located about 25 miles outside of Tampa, FL, in a rural area typically known for its strawberry farms, the gated, 25,000-square-foot facility is so well concealed that the address didn't even come up in Apple Maps.

Here, I got a look at Verizon's fortified infrastructure and state-of-the-art transportable assets designed to help quickly restore critical communications should disaster strike, including mobile cell sites on trucks and trailers, as well as a 5G robotic dog.

During the peak of Hurricane Ian last year, thousands of cell sites were down, Verizon leads said. On hurricane-ravaged Sanibel Island, which was cut off from the mainland of Florida when a bridge collapsed during the storm, Verizon launched a drone that provided cellular coverage to support search and rescue teams and first responders. Powered by a generator on the ground, the tethered drone can fly for up to 1,000 hours (or about six weeks), providing coverage for an approximate radius of five to seven miles. This is exactly the type of situation Verizon and its hurricane-proof