Verizon Donates $25,000 and Offers Services to Aid Southern California Wildfire Evacuees
28 October 2003 - 10:42AM
PR Newswire (US)
Verizon Donates $25,000 and Offers Services to Aid Southern
California Wildfire Evacuees Company's Overall Network Largely
Unaffected by Widespread Blazes; Some Cables Burned by Fires
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Foundation
will donate $25,000 to the American Red Cross to aid those
Californians forced to flee their homes in the face of devastating
wildfires that have swept across the region. "Our prayers and hopes
go out to our fellow Californians as they strive to cope with the
impact of these firestorms," said Verizon Pacific Region President
Tim McCallion. "Through this contribution and by providing
additional telecommunication services to those in need, we hope we
can make their lives a little easier at a very trying time." The
grant goes to the Inland Empire chapter of the American Red Cross
in San Bernardino, which is caring for thousands of evacuees.
Verizon is working with customers who were evacuated to provide
various services that will help them cope with being away from home
for an extended period. The company has set up banks of payphones
at some Red Cross evacuation sites, which will allow evacuees to
place a free call to relatives and friends anywhere in the United
States. On Monday, Verizon donated more than 400 prepaid calling
cards to the Red Cross in San Bernardino for distribution to
evacuees as well as firefighters who are battling the blazes.
Despite the widespread fires, Verizon's Southern California network
remained largely unaffected Monday. Approximately 6,000 lines were
reported out of service. Some outages were the result of direct
fire damage to Verizon lines and equipment, and others were
attributed to drained backup batteries in electronic equipment in
areas that had lost electrical power. Verizon technicians are
stockpiling materials and preparing to enter the affected areas to
restore service as soon as fire department officials declare it
safe to do so. The company's overall network continued to operate
normally throughout the rest of the state as some switching systems
and other electronic equipment switched to emergency backup power
when commercial power was lost. A Fortune 10 company, Verizon
Communications (NYSE:VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of
communications services, with approximately $67 billion in revenues
and 221,000 employees. Verizon companies are the largest providers
of wireline and wireless communications in the United States, with
137.6 million access line equivalents and 34.6 million Verizon
Wireless customers. Verizon is the third largest long-distance
carrier for U.S. consumers, with 14.6 million long-distance lines.
The company is also the largest directory publisher in the world,
as measured by directory titles and circulation. Verizon's
international presence includes wireline and wireless
communications operations and investments, primarily in the
Americas and Europe. For more information, visit
http://www.verizon.com/ . VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon
news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts
and other information are available at Verizon's News Center on the
World Wide Web at http://www.verizon.com/news. To receive news
releases by e-mail, visit the News Center and register for
customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases. DATASOURCE:
Verizon CONTACT: Jonathan Davies of Verizon, +1-805-372-6969, or
Web site: http://www.verizon.com/ Company News On-Call:
http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/094251.html
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