Cox Communications has temporarily stopped taking new sales calls as it focuses on restoring service to all of its existing customers following Hurricane Gustav. Customers who have called Cox about new services this week are prompted to a message that states, “due to Hurricane Gustav, our sales department is currently closed. We will re-open as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.” Cox Spokeswoman Ann Ruble says the company isn’t currently scheduling new installations due to the volume of ongoing recovery work. “We need our field guys to do recovery of existing customers before they could focus on new installs,” Ruble writes in an email. “Our experience over the past nine days has shown that when power is restored, about 80 percent of customers will come back immediately. The other 20 percent experience either damage to the cable in their neighborhood or their individual drop. This group requires significant individualized work by our field representatives. By the end of the week, we probably will be able to begin scheduling new customers in Acadiana, but our priority has been on existing customers.” Ruble adds that last Friday, Cox restored all service to its substations and is currently dealing with a small percentage of customers in the Lafayette/Acadiana region without service.
Update: This morning, Cox resumed taking sales calls for Acadiana