Verizon works to repair ground zero sites

More than two weeks have passed since the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, but wireless carriers are still taking one day at a time.

“Things are changing day to day,” said Kevin Marchesani, Verizon (www.verizon.com) senior engineer. “Everything is an evolution down there.”

Marchesani is one of many working to repair Verizon’s damaged network sites and maintain emergency-level communications in the area now known as ground zero. Slowly but surely things are returning to normal.

“They’ve come a long way since a week ago,” he said. “As far as the infrastructure is involved, they’re laying new cable and working to get permanent power back. Most of our sites have been restored power- wise. They’re no longer on generator."

Verizon was one of the hardest hit telecommunications companies in lower Manhattan, losing a landline central office that knocked out wireless sites throughout the area. It fought back by deploying temporary sites and its network never went down, said spokeswoman Nancy Stark.

“We were processing, and we continue to process twice the volume of a normal day,” Stark said.

Stark said flexibility was the key to working in that area.

“It’s an emergency situation,” she said. “If workers or the authorities need access, we have the flexibility to move (temporary sites). We’re being creative. We’re being flexible. The important thing is to aid the workers.”

Both Stark and Marchesani said Verizon was focused on maintaining the entire communications system, from emergency workers to the people returning to homes and jobs in the area.

Marchesani said the hardest thing about working in a national crime scene was the security checkpoints.

“But, they’re pretty good to us,” he said. “As long as we have proper identification, we can get through.”