Our fragile, neglected infrastructure

[patric]

News reports recalling the 1983 destruction of a Tulsa Southwestern Bell telephone switching office expressed confidence that the widespread communications outages resulting from thieves taking a chainsaw to the facility couldn't happen today because fewer people are dependent on pre-cellular phone service served by copper wires.

The attack on the Bell System Central Office was intended to disrupt the intrusion alarm of a warehouse the thieves were burglarizing.
https://oklahoman.com/article/2011054/5-charged-in-tulsa-warehouse-heist

Fast forward to Christmas Day 2020, where a truck bomb parked outside a Nashville AT&T switching office laid bare the vulnerable condition of modern-day internet, wireless, and 911 communications in several states.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/29/nashville-bombing-area-communications-network-exposed-achilles-heel/4070797001/

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The vulnerability of the telecommunications system in Nashville and beyond became clear Christmas Day when AT&T's central office in downtown became the site of a bombing.

State and local officials and experts say the fact that a multi-state region could be brought to its knees by a single bombing is a "wake-up call," exposing vulnerabilities many didn't know existed and predicting it would lead to intense conversations about the future.
“This was one of the worst case scenarios that happened,” Durbin said. “... To have (AT&T)completely taken out … was even broader impact than we thought.” “This affected our entire Southeast region,” Bailey said. “There were multiple states that had issues because of this.”

"How does a city as a whole function if we go through something like this again or a natural disaster?"

[dbacksfan 2.0]

I was just thinking about the SW Bell cable cutting/Bergen Brunswig robbery while watching this unfold. The minute they said there was an AT&T building on that street I looked it up on Google Maps, and saw about where the bomb was placed, a non hardened/reinforced service entrance that's probably where the back up generator is located. You don't have to bring the building down to create a problem, and sadly I doubt that any of the old Bell System switch centers like this one, have any reinforcement, and I also have serious doubts about their disaster recovery plans.

https://goo.gl/maps/kskWEqRpL2AzqbLk9

I kept waiting for the next shoe to drop knowing that they just shut down most all major communications in that area of the state. I was thinking that there was going to be some other action taken.