Carrier crews kept equipment online as windows shattered around them and New Orleans was evacuated. FCC sought help from CLECs to inventory what services they had running and what their needs were for fuel to run generators. Phone companies were granted extraordinary authority to port numbers to out-of-state locations – something that is normally time consuming, if allowed at all. Crews at Internet domain registrar DirectNIC weathered the storm at the companys French Quarter office. BellSouth would not say how many central offices were knocked out but said 1.4 million lines in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”]
Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/2119166/katrina-tests-net-service-providers.html