Madison River Communications

September 10, 2005

At 7:38am CDT on September 1, Madison River Communications lost all connectivity to its Central Office switch due to the loss of power on its back-up generator. At this time, due to the loss of commercial power to the building, the Mayor of New Orleans' current mandated evacuation of the city due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the uncertainty of access to the city, restoration of commercial power and/or fuel availability, MRC cannot predict when it will be able to restore service to its Lousianna or Mississippi customers affected by this outage.

Madison River personnel gained access to the New Orleans switching center on Friday September 9, 2005. Because Madison River’s switching and transport systems are located on an upper floor, there appeared to be no visible damage to the switching or transport equipment. Madison River is presently working with local authorities and the building owner related to restoring power to the building. Because there was flooding on the lower floors of the building, a complete electrical inspection is necessary prior to restoring power via our on site emergency generator. Restoration of commercial power will require approval by a state certified inspector once commercial power is available. The date of that activity has yet to be determined.

Madison River personnel working with local contractors affected repairs to its New Orleans metro fiber ring today (September 10, 2005).