Trey Rabon, president of AT&T North Carolina, knew that Hurricane Helene was going to be bad, with the company positioning crews ahead of time in western North Carolina. But he and the company had no idea of the level of destruction the storm would leave behind in its wake.
“I have worked in this industry, and for BellSouth-AT&T, for over 25 years. And I have seen a number of hurricanes that have impacted our state, but nothing like this,” he told Carolina Journal in a recent phone interview. “It was unprecedented.”
Rabon talked to CJ about the preparations that were made for Helene, the work involved to get communication systems and infrastructure up and running, but also improved; and about the future, with new and improved systems for things like broadband in the western part of the state.
AT&T, which has been serving the state for over 145 years, serves a good portion of western North Carolina, including the I-26 and I-40 corridor, which intersects with US 321. The far southwestern and far northwestern corners of the state are served by other providers.
AT&T had a team embedded at the North Carolina Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Raleigh the morning before the storm hit and pre-positioned network disaster response crews and mobile assets just outside the projected impact zone. Even with those preparations, the company was stunned by the aftermath.
“The EOC activated at seven that morning, and we had folks that were providing our network teams updates throughout the day,” he said. “I had a conversation with the director of Emergency Management that evening, and said as soon as the storm passes, we want to be able to roll our trucks in and assess the damage. The storm didn’t pass; it just kind of stayed and hovered over western North Carolina, dumping a deluge of water.”
The company’s crews attempted to access areas by using US 321, I-40, and I-26, but signs indicating that the roads were closed were seen everywhere. They told the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) that they needed to get in there, but the state agency advised AT&T that the roads and bridges weren’t passable because they were wiped out by mudslides.
AT&T then partnered with the state and flew teams in on helicopters to assess the damage.
“We literally couldn’t count the number of trees and the number of roads that were wiped out, but we were able to map ways that we could have folks walk into some of these areas. And they could take an ATV to get so far into the areas as they could, and then they would begin walking,” Rabon said. “All told, there were thousands of broken poles; we had over two million feet of downed and severed cables, cables that were just taken off the poles or wiped out completely. Anything that was in a valley area that was electronic wasn’t operating because it was either flooded or wiped away by a mudslide; or there was just no power to power these systems and offices. So, the level of devastation we saw was something that I think we have never seen, and I think we’d be hard pressed to see again.”
He noted that the last time a level of destruction comparable to this was observed was over 100 years ago, during the 1916 floods.
After the damage was assessed, teams from AT&T went to work installing temporary lines and cables, and brought in satellite-based cell sites on wheels so first responders, NCDOT, State Highway Patrol, and National Guard could communicate.
“Then we began the process of painstakingly clearing routes so that we could rebuild the core infrastructure to get western North Carolina up and running,” Rabon told CJ. “We began that work in October, and we largely finished it at the end of June 2025. We still occasionally will get calls to restore services to homes that have been inaccessible, whether it’s families that had a private bridge that they had to rebuild across the creek and get back into their homes, or whether it’s an area that, quite honestly, just can’t get utility poles back up and working. So, it’s been a herculean task.”
The company has restored services and is operating as business as usual, but there was a silver lining in the dark clouds of Helene.
“We’ve increased capacity and coverage across 64 cell sites,” Rabon said. “Some of them are new; some of them have been enhanced to support modern communications. We’ve also extended fiber to over 15,000 households and businesses that didn’t have it prior to the storm. We’re not only building back; we’re building back better, and we’re doing so in a way that brings many areas into the 21st century in terms of their connectivity.”
AT&T performed the repair work without outside funding; however, what was perhaps more important were the partnerships that the company developed and utilized, including those involved in clearing obstacles to restore service.
“I can point to a situation that we had in Lake Lure,” he said. “We have the central office that was critical to wireline and wireless communications across western North Carolina because that was a primary path from Charlotte to Asheville, and so you have the long line fibers that went into this office. This office was isolated due to the devastation of the flooding in Rutherford County and the almost breach of a dam at Lake Lure, so we had to rebuild connectivity into that office.”
With Highway 74 being washed away, company officials identified the next best path to getting there was through the Broad River. They reached out to the state to ask for approvals to lay down fiber through the middle of the river, and within 24 hours, they had approvals from the Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) and NCDOT. The approvals helped secure an unprecedented approval, according to Rabon, from the US Army Corps of Engineers to put a flexible conduit down the middle of the river, run fiber about three miles down the river, go out of the river along the roadway, and then cross the river multiple times to get service back to the central office. This allowed them to add that coverage in that capacity, not just on AT&T’s wireless network, but other wireless providers that were utilizing fiber going through the central office.
“That was just one of many cases where the state, along with the federal government, removed obstacles or impediments, or they fast-tracked permits or approvals to allow us to restore services,” Rabon told CJ. “We really saw for the first three months or so, post-storm, the power of yes. I can’t think of any instance where we didn’t go back to the state of North Carolina or to the federal government and ask for something and not get it. So, there was true collaboration.”
Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein announced a $50 million Broadband Recovery Program that will provide grants to help internet service providers rebuild and repair broadband infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Helene.
Internet service providers with infrastructure projects in the 39 Hurricane Helene disaster-designated counties, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, can apply by the end of the day on Nov. 24 by visiting www.ncbroadband.gov/broadbandrecovery.
Rabon said they would also be evaluating the program to see if there is an opportunity for AT&T to improve its network with grant funding.
He said the collaboration they saw in western North Carolina is unlike anything that they have seen before, even with the damage from hurricanes Florence, Matthew, Dorian, and Tropical Storm Fred. However, those experiences, he believes, shaped the cohesiveness that had not been previously seen.
“So that spirit of collaboration is a product of us having so many events in North Carolina,” he said. “Whether they’re storms, wildfires, winter storms, and I think that we have really honed our ability to work well together into a sharp edge that serves the state well.”