Lifelong Louisiana resident John Gaudet got his first glimpse of Hurricane Ida’s aftermath in the wee hours of Aug. 30, 2021. What was saw from his bedroom window was “pure devastation.”
“这太不真实了，”他说. “Everywhere around us, trees and poles were down, roofs were torn off. It looked like something out of a movie — just pure devastation everywhere. In my 47 years, this is the worst we’ve ever had in this area.”
In those pre-dawn hours, Gaudet realized his services would be sorely needed. 他的公司, 独立, 总部位于洛杉矶的PC全球系统, provides networking solutions in Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm left thousands of people — including himself and many of his customers — without internet service.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, 路易斯安那州52%的人超过2岁,8月，700个蜂窝基站停止服务. 30. And while the first orders of business were ensuring the safety of others and digging out from the wreckage, helping businesses resume their operations was not far behind.
Gaudet knew the fastest way to get people up and running again was satellite internet. Until the hurricane, it hadn’t been a tool he’d generally reached for.
”It was not anything I normally recommended because a lot of my customers were in areas where they had other internet choices that were wired, 不用依赖卫星,他说.
艾达改变了这一切. Those traditional internet service providers rely on infrastructure that wasn’t operable immediately after the hurricane. 而不是使用电缆或光纤, satellite internet operates via radio waves that transmit data between a satellite and a subscriber’s antenna. It can also typically be installed 3-5 days after an order is placed, making it the quickest solution available for hurricane and other victims of natural disasters.
Gaudet himself was among those without service, and chose Viasat as his interim solution.
“飓风过后, we spent half a day just cutting ourselves out to be able to have access to check on family members,他说. “根据我们对该地区的观察, we didn’t expect to get power for at least 4-6 weeks, and didn’t expect to have internet for two months. 这是倒下的电线和杆子的数目.”
While both power and internet were restored much sooner than Gaudet expected, he and other area businesses needed internet to resume operations as soon as possible. Gaudet had Viasat installed and relied on it exclusively for two weeks, 直到他恢复了原来的服务.
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Like Gaudet, most of those customers are keeping Viasat business internet as a backup service.
“Based on the devastation they experienced, they would like to keep Viasat so if something does happen, 他们可以恢复原状,他说. “I think we all feel we could easily get another big storm next year during hurricane season.
“即使是在短期内, we have customers still experiencing outages as service providers work on fixing their systems. Businesses want to keep that secondary internet in place because of the up-and-down nature of those connections.”
Regardless of the damage from Hurricane Ida, and the chance that another storm could someday ravage the area, Gaudet remains firmly rooted in Louisiana. 这不仅仅是他一生的家, but also where he’s built a business — one founded on often long-term relationships with the people who live there. The response those friends and neighbors had to Hurricane Ida has only made Gaudet love his home more.
“You could see the true spirit of the people in our area as soon as the storm passed,他说 “You saw everybody not just taking care of their own, but cutting paths for other people and checking on neighbors. Nobody waited for assistance from anybody; everyone pitched in with chainsaws, 机械, 或者只是他们的手.”
In Gaudet’s view, Viasat’s response reflected that same spirit.
“I really have to give Viasat kudos,他说. “They stepped forward and did a wonderful job of supplying our customers with internet and doing it in a timely fashion when we really needed it in this area.
“We didn’t do a large business with Viasat in the past, but as we’re branching out and trying to get into some of these rural areas, 我们会更多地使用它们. First and foremost, it’s a logical choice in these areas. There are other satellite internet vendors you could go with, but because of the response and the way they treated me and my customers during Hurricane Ida, 我会一直使用Viasat.”