Why is the mobile network so unreliable during this tornado recovery?

[Dave3940]

Ottawa got hit with a tornado on Friday and all weekend I have found the cell network to be unreliable in both voice and data. Calls fail to connect, or get dropped, and access to emergency information is problematic. 

Why is that? And what needs to be done in order to make the infrastructure a little more bulletrpoof?

-Dave

[FidoFrancois]

Hi @Dave3940! Welcome to the Community. I hope you're doing well. 

We understand how crucial it is to stay connected to our friends and family and have access to the latest information, especially in situations like this one.

From what we know, extreme weather conditions (including tornadoes) that occurred on September 21 caused wide-spread power outages and our services were impacted by it. We dispatched emergency generators to restore the service as much as possible, however we have some limitation due to Hydro activities restoring power.

As I'm writing this, our crews are still hard at work and working as fast as possible to restore the service.

[Dave3940]

Thanks for the info! 

What I didn't say was that all the cell companies seemed to be similarly affected. So, I was thinking it was something systemic.

I wasn't raising the question as a complaint, in as much as I wanted to highlight it as an issue that we need to prepare for in the future. Losing my power for 48 hours taught me how little prepared I am. I'm hoping cell companies got a similar wake up call and are taking steps to avoid similar unpreparedness in the future. 

The storms are only going to get worse with global warming. 

-Dave