Battening Down the Hatches

Comcast was finding hotel rooms for FL Keys employees Fri after the state began evacuating the islands at 7am for Hurricane Ivan. The MSO shut ops for the weekend and boarded up equipment. With only 1 road out of the Keys, evacuations were staggered, and it took about 36 hrs to evacuate, Comcast’s Spiro Canton said. As of Sun night, officials were "cautiously optimistic" the Keys would be spared the worst today; FL is recovering from Hurricane Frances, which pounded the east coast Labor Day weekend and Charley, which arrived in mid Aug. Repairs are almost complete in Dade and Broward Counties and Comcast is finishing damage assessment for the Treasure Coast. Headends in Vero Beach and Pierce sustained damage from Frances, which hit Adelphia hard, but as of Fri the MSO had restored service to 75% of its HHs. That’s a vast improvement from Mon, when 600K of 700K customers were down. With Adelphia’s regional office in W Palm, it’s eyeing Ivan with caution, an official says.