Those who went through Charley or Frances - PLEASE HELP!

[elvinp]

Cell phone worked well in Arcadia 5 days after Charley and before they had much electricity. Also cell phone never went down in Tampa during Frances even though electricity was out for 30 hours.

[27-80]

I'm in Palm Beach Gardens and we stayed in our home throughout (never again!). We have ATT and we got "extended area" coverage, which meant they shuffled us to a roaming service (2.99 fee to connect and 1.99 per minute and you have to charge it to a credit card). But that service was hard to connect to (guess it was being used). When we were able to get out of the neighborhood two days later, we could get regular service; guess the towers in our area were down but others were OK.

[WxGator]

In Fort Myers and I was without power for almost 6 days from Charley.

Ability to use the cell (ATT) phone was immediately very spotty - I often had to dial/send five to ten times before getting out. But there was never a time that I absolutely could not get out for hours. I only received (guess here) about 1 of 5 incoming calls - others would go to voicemail and I would suddently get a notice on the phone that I had voicemails.

Got much better after a few or so days. I was in Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda for a day, exactly one week after Charley, and I had the same spotty cell coverage, but again there was never a time when I absolutely could not make a call (still had to dial/send a few times).

[Stormy1]

We found that after the past 2 'canes, many of our friends and family had problems placing calls within the state but could call us (in Indy) and we could call them with relative ease.

If need be, we would be happy to help set up some kind of relay system for those having cell probs.

[jagesq]

Its all hit or miss, here in Palm Beach Gardens, I'm still getting awful service because 1 of the light towers at Roger Dean Stadium was a celluar service tower as well. You never know, but I'm getting 1 bar of service at best 10 days later with frequent interruptions.

[tronbunny]

My Nextel (neither phone nor DC) didn't work for beans after Charley in Osceola county for almost a week.
When I got out of the area, had very spotty success in using the phone. Only slightly better result for Direct Connect.

Bottom line, not much better than landline.

[27-80]

a quck add -- even with the spotty cellular service, it was there. Our land line was out six days. A coworker still doesn't have his land line back (Bell South gave him an Oct. 4 target date ...)

[AdvAutoBob]

My Nextel service was fine until Charley drew up towards Pine Island. (about 15 miles from us). From then till about a day and a half later we didn't have any service. Then all we had was Direct Connect. Regular cell service was spotty for about the first 4 days after Charley and slowly got better. Our landline was fine, but had to get out the "old style" telephone (non cordless). Something to have in your hurricane kit as well, a cheap-o phone that uses the phone line voltage rather than house current.

[ladygatorslayer]

My husbands Aunt lives in Punta Gorda. You could call her cell phone and leave a message, but it never went through to her.

During Frances, I was in St. Pete. Cell phones worked fine. Can't say the same about land line, power, and cable.

[bradg]

nextell didnt work for at least 5 days

[Doc Seminole]

Cingular hung in there through both storms but it got difficult to connect or receive calls for several days following the storms.

Nextel held up and was highly prized here..... but then this is home of the Daytona 500 and the Winst........ uh Nextel Cup and I heard Nextel place vans all over town to keep their system going.

[Micro Dee]

We live in South Brevard, have AT&T and Nextel cell's. AT&T phone worked the next day (9/5), it took a few days for the Nextel's to work. Nextel's were intermitant at first, seemed like they took about 4-5 days before they were fully functional.

[huricanwatcher]

Man a few of you people are really ROUGH on here, hope they fair out ok from storm, dont write them off before its even there........ gezzzzz

[Windsong]

Nextet Radio worked great, but cell function was intermintant. My Cingular was pretty worthless for a few days after the storm though. I was blessing that radio function right and left. It never let me down during either hurricane.

Good luck. I pray for the safety of your family. Any chance you can get them to go inland? I feel for you.

[CharleySurvivor]

I live in Charlotte County and rode Charley. My cell phone didn't work for many days (in Charlotte County) because all the towers were down from the cane. They brought 'mobile towers' so we could have service back. I have Sprint.

What I did was drive North to Venice - about 30 minutes drive- they didn't get hit and I was able to use my cell phone. I had no problem with the line there.

[Texasblu]

I came thru Charley here in Port Charlotte. At first we had no cellphones and then after that the usage was spotty.

[Sturmreiter]

I live in West Palm Beach and wasn't able to place a call on my cell for several days after Frances.
What worked for me was sending text messages - didn't always work on the first try, but my phone kept retrying and eventually a message would go through. Not reliable - but better than nothing ... Good luck to you and your family!!!