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Inside AT&T's National Disaster Recovery Batcave: Who AT&T Calls When the Death ...

Written by Brandon Klein | Apr 7, 2011 8:12:00 PM

When the World Trade Center collapsed, it took out a critical AT&T switch, crippling service. It was restored in 52 hours—including the time to drive a caravan of eighteen-wheelers from Atlanta to a lot in Jersey City.
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It's hot, and muggy, like it usually is in Georgia at the end of July. There's no AC in this warehouse, a concrete desert with a tin roof, lit by strips of undying fluorescent lights and streaks of the sun flooding in from the open bay doors in the back. A single industrial-sized fan is blowing, almost like someone's idea of a practical joke. It's a vast industrial space that feels utterly empty, even with dozens of 18 wheelers lined up, a convoy waiting for a calamity. The only signs that humans work here are a basketball hoop and a climbing rope. I was hoping for a more Batcave-y Batcave.