Firms offer lifeline for cellphones
One company drove 1,000 miles to dry Harvey-soaked devices for free
In the chaos and terror of the Texas flooding, getting to safety is first on anyone’s list. But once out of harm’s way, a working cellphone is crucial to modern life — and sometimes difficult to come by given that delicate electronics and water don’t mix.
To help people get up and running again, cellphone drying companies are offering free services and setting up mobile charging stations. One firm drove a truck 1,000 miles from Denver to Houston, a roughly 15-hour overnight sprint, to help bring dead phones back to life.
“I feel like my head’s back on my shoulders,” said Bernard Scott, 56, whose phone was dried out by staff from TekDry, the Denver company that’s working out of a truck parked next to Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center, offering free services. “My phone’s got everything — my emails, my Instagram, my family contacts. Everything.”
Without a phone, those affected by Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath can easily drop off the virtual map. Smartphones are increasingly how Americans access the digital world. A survey by the Pew Research Center late last year found that for 12% of American adults, their smartphone was their only access to the Internet.
Scott’s phone got water-damaged when he was heading for a vehicle to get him out of the rain and the path of flooding.
“I really thought my phone was through,” he said. He and his family have been staying at the convention center since Aug. 25, but he hadn’t been able to reach extended family in Louisiana to tell them everyone was OK.
TekDry offers phone and electronics services at about 600 sites nationwide, mostly in Staples stores. It typically charges $69.99 to get a phone working again.
The company has six locations in the Dallas area but none in Houston. When CEO Adam Cookson realized the extent of the disaster in Houston, he and another staffer loaded up a truck with a generator, two drying machines, a bunch of phone charging stations and bottled water and started driving from Denver.
They arrived at the convention center Wednesday afternoon.
“We had barely set up when a line formed,” Cookson said.
A TV crew lent them power from their generator, and the team started drying out phones, a 30-minute process that involves putting them under pressure in a heated box to boil off the water at low temperatures that don’t damage the electronics.
“Phones are clearly important to people. One thing that surprised me was how many of them wanted a picture taken of us giving them their phone back. It really brought home how crucial they are in people’s lives,” Cookson said.
In general, TekDry can save about 50% of phones if they’re brought into one of its service centers within 36 hours. In the case of phones dunked during Hurricane Harvey, most had been wet for days, and their owners also tried to turn them on, lowering the odds of saving them.
Saturday was TekDry’s last day in Houston. Phones that had been drenched during the storm and floods were reaching the limit of when they could be saved, as most had gotten wet between five and seven days before.
Cookson said his team learned a lot and now knows how to be even more effective “when this kind of large situational need unfortunately arises again,” he said.
Other local drying shops are also offering free services. DryBox, a San Antonio-based company, is waiving the $39.95 charge at its 11 Houston-area self-service stations at H-E-B stores. Users can enter promotion code HARVEY.
Gregory Stanton, 62, couldn’t connect with his family after he lost his home to the flood.
“I was leaving on a boat when they were rescuing me and my family, and my phone dropped in the water. It was up to my neck, so it was in there for a while before we found it,” he said.
That was Sunday. He got his phone back Wednesday night.
Not everyone is so lucky. David Runels, 55, was hoping against hope his phone could be brought back to life after it slipped out of his pocket when he was helping his seven family members out of their flooded house.
“I haven’t had a phone, so I couldn’t call my boss. I need to call to find out if I still have a job,” said Runels, who delivers pizza for Domino’s.