After a lightning strike knocked out phones and network gear at the Greenville store, I led the emergency response — guiding staff through interim fixes remotely, then deploying permanent, upgraded replacements to bring the location fully back online.
A Lightning Strike Takes the Store Down
A lightning strike at the Greenville store damaged phones and network equipment at once, threatening to halt operations. The store needed to keep serving customers immediately — while the right long-term replacements were sourced, shipped, and installed — with me coordinating every step from off-site.
What I Delivered
Immediate emergency response
Assessed the damage and coordinated the recovery the moment the strike hit.
Phones replaced
Restored voice service with replacement phones, then upgraded units for the long term.
Network equipment replaced
Swapped out damaged switching and network gear to bring connectivity back.
Upgraded, minimal downtime
Guided interim fixes remotely so the store stayed operational until permanent gear arrived.
Skills & Tools
The stack behind this build — tap any to see related work.
The Impact
Greenville came back online fast and came back better — interim measures kept the store running through the outage, and permanent, upgraded phones and network equipment left it more resilient than before the strike.
Downtime Is a Coordination Problem
Hardware fails on its own schedule; recovery is about who’s coordinating. Walking store staff through interim fixes while the real replacements were en route kept Greenville serving customers — and the upgrade on the way out made the next storm less of a threat.
Image credits: “19-inch rackmount Ethernet switches and patch panels” by Dsimic (CC BY-SA 4.0) · “Cloud to ground lightning bangalore” by Ezhuttukari (CC BY-SA 3.0)
