By RENEE DUDLEY
rdudley@islandpacket.com
843-706-8138
Nestled between the fifteen and sixteenth holes of the Harbour Town Golf Links is a communications trailer where those attending the Verizon Heritage can make complimentary international phone calls, use the Internet and get in touch with friends they've lost along the course.
While organizer Roy Feldt and his colleagues used the trailer to demonstrate satellite communications technology during this week's golf tournament on Hilton Head Island, the mobile communications center -- with 24 separate phone and Internet stations -- has served far more serious purposes.
After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, the federal government asked the company that is now Verizon for help restoring communications, Feldt said.
The phone company, which had already built one of the trailers to serve large clients during serious power outages, took its mobile communications center on the road.
Since then, the trailers -- there are now three of them in the U.S. -- have served people at every major disaster in the U.S., including the six-month period after Hurricane Katrina, and most recently, during the California wildfires, Feldt said. The rubber-floored, spartan trailers don't leave disaster areas until normal service has been restored, he said.
After Sept. 11 attacks, 100,000 phone calls were made from the trailer, Feldt said. More than half of the death certificates of victims of the attacks were faxed from it, he said.
Saturday, Feldt recalled a couple he assisted in New York City following the attacks. The husband used the trailer's phones to make funeral arrangements for his son and daughter-in-law. The man's wife, who sat behind her husband, took out a stack of photos of her son, a victim of the attacks. She spent 30 minutes showing the photos to Feldt. The next day, she returned to thank him for his kindness.
"I was touched," he said. "I had a sense of pride that Verizon was able to help them, and that I was able to help her."
After natural disasters, victims use the trailers to contact their insurance agents and lawyers and connect with lost relatives, Feldt said.
The three trailers, which serve commercial clients during major power disruptions, are normally stationed in Dallas so they can be driven to either coast or Canada within 24 hours.
Saturday, Feldt's work was much lighter.
"I love watching golf and talking to people here," he said as he distributed green and purple Verizon koozies to passersby.
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