THE EMERGENCY CONTROL. CENTER (ECC) The ECC is located in the Colonnade Building in Birmingham, Alabama. During an emergency, the ECC staff will convene a group of pre-selected experts to inventory the damage and initiate corrective actions. These experts have regional access to BellSouth's personnel and equipment and will assume control of the restoration activity anywhere in the nine-state area. In the past, the ECC has been involved with restoration activities resulting from hurricanes, ice storms and floods. They have demonstrated their capabilities during these calamities as well as during outages caused by human error or equipment failures. This group has an excellent record of restoring service as quickly as possible. During a major disaster, the ECC may move emergency equipment to the affected location, direct recovery efforts of local personnel and coordinate service restoration activities with the CLECs. The ECC will attempt to restore service as quickly as possible using whatever means is available; leaving permanent solutions, such as the replacement of damaged buildings or equipment, for local personnel to administer. Part of the ECC's responsibility, after temporary equipment is in place, is to support the NMC efforts to return service to the CLECs. Once service has been restored, the ECC will return control of the network to normal operational organizations. Any long-term changes required after service is restored will be made in an orderly fashion and will be conducted as normal activity.
