Train derailment in Baltimore reveals a fragile Net backbone

by C. Benjamin Ford and Neil Adler * Staff Writers

Smoke billows from the Howard Street train tunnel in Baltimore July 18 after a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed. The crash paralyzed the city for days and snarled communications on the East Coast and beyond. ROBERTO BOREA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Internet surfing resembled dog paddling after last week’s train derailment and fire in Baltimore severed fiber-optic lines going through the Howard Street tunnel, backing up online traffic regionally and nationally.

The accident cut through three major fiber-optic lines for the East Coast: WorldCom Inc.’s UUNet, Metromedia Fiber Network and PSINet Inc.

“That tunnel is basically the I-95 of the East Coast for fiber,” said John Grundey, president of LAI Construction Services Inc. of White Marsh, which built a fiber-optic line detour around the break. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime place for vulnerability.”

Forty miles away from the tunnel, Bethesda Internet service provider Boo.net’s customers were able to log on but were unable to see Web pages or receive and send e-mail.

Seventy-five miles away, Citicorp’s call center in Hagerstown lost two-thirds of its phone service for customers to call about information regarding credit card applications and bills.

The disruption should alert companies whose lifeblood is telecommunication services to the importance of redundancy, said Harvey Jacobs, a Washington, D.C., attorney who specializes in Internet-related legal issues.

Companies need at least two providers for their Web hosting and telecom services despite the higher costs involved, he said. Then, when a disruption like last week’s occurs, a company can avoid going out of business, even temporarily, Jacobs said. “The lesson we learned is that diversity through redundancy means more than just different carriers. You also need to make sure the wire itself is redundant,” said Gerald McCloskey, general manager of the mid-Atlantic region for Advanced TelCom Group Inc., a competitive local exchange carrier with offices in Frederick and Germantown.

Users not directly affected by severed connections experienced delays in accessing Web sites, said Mary Lindsey, a spokeswoman for Keynote Systems of San Mateo, Calif., which tracks the Internet’s performance.

“As they rerouted around the break, it started to put an extra load on the Internet infrastructure,” she said.

Signals sent down the fiber-optic lines were rerouted by switches onto other lines, a routine procedure when a line is cut. But WorldCom spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said last week’s problem was more severe than usual because the fiber-optic cable through the tunnel is a major line for the company’s “extremely busy” Northeast corridor.

As a result, customers lost phone service and experienced long lags in e-mail, she said. WorldCom crews started working July 18 and had new fiber-optic lines around the tunnel through existing city conduits and new construction by July 20, she said. WorldCom used its own crews while Metromedia contracted its work out to LAI Construction Services, with the project managed by Frederick’s Bechtel Telecommunications.

Verizon Communications Inc. lost service to two buildings in the immediate area of the derailment accident, and it lost some data service transported over other carriers’ networks, said Catherine Lewis, manager of media relations in Washington.

Customers who have Verizon for local phone service and WorldCom for long distance also may have had difficulty with long distance only.

The problems were sporadic around Maryland. Citicorp officials were still drafting a memo the morning of July 19 asking employees to curb all non-customer-related telephone and Internet use when service was back to normal, said spokesman Phil Kelly.

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce’s Web site was down for a day, said president Kathy Snyder. “If we lose our Web sites, our Internet capability, even if it’s just for a few hours, we feel like we’re back in the dark ages.”

Rick Binetti, a spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, said the derailment cost the city an estimated $1.3 million in fire, police, health and public works services.

Officials of CSX Transportation in Richmond, Va., have offered to pay a portion of the costs, but final responsibility for the financial damage will be determined by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, Binetti said.

While Baltimore officials tally up the costs from the derailment and cleanup, all kinds of businesses from a barbershop near the accident scene to the Baltimore Orioles — who said they lost $2 million to $3 million for two games canceled because of the derailment — will be looking at how much they’re owed. Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the accident and whether the railroad or the city will be responsible.

“Although we do not yet know the cause of the accident, we already are working with affected business owners in the area to address how this accident impacted their businesses,” CSXT President Michael J. Ward said in a statement.

However, businesses that lost Internet service may not be covered for any potential loss, Jacobs said. “Assuming something is not grossly negligent, fire, flood and wind are typically excluded from the part of the contract that holds the Web host liable for things beyond their control,” he said.