Drew Dixon
A communications company is kicking in substantial financial contributions to Hurricane Helene relief, along with additional public service contributions in the wake of the storm.
Spectrum, a subsidiary of Charter Communications, has now thrown in a total of $1 million worth of relief support for storm recovery. About $250,000 of that is going directly to support organizations helping with recovery efforts. Another $750,000 will go toward in-kind services.
“The contributions will assist organizations in providing much-needed aid and assistance to impacted communities. Spectrum will donate $50,000 each to the OneSC Fund, to the Volunteer Florida Foundation, and to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund. An additional $100,000 will be donated to local organizations in the hardest hit areas of Georgia, along the Western Florida coastline, and impacted communities in and around Asheville, North Carolina and Spartanburg, South Carolina,” a company news release said Wednesday.
The other $750,000 will be used to produce public service announcements that will air on broadcast outlets throughout many of the areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall Thursday. The PSAs “will air at no cost to assist these organizations, and other community partners, with fundraising and awareness for disaster relief efforts.”
Meanwhile, Spectrum Mobile and internet customers will keep some free service. Spectrum will keep free Wi-Fi access points open for several days. That free Wi-Fi access was generated last week before the storm hit in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and bordering areas amounting to 90,000 out-of-home locations. Free hot spot access in public places such as parks, marinas and city streets will continue through Oct. 7, company officials said.
At the same time, the Connecticut-based company is continuing to deploy crews to restore service throughout the affected Southeast region of the U.S.
“Spectrum technicians and engineers are actively working to restore service in impacted areas. Teams have been staged and ready to quickly assess damages as soon as areas are deemed safe and make repairs to restore service to impacted customers as power is returned. Often, services are restored for customers as soon as power comes back online. Understanding the inconvenience of being without service, Spectrum will continue to provide updates to customers as they become available,” company officials said.
