Wi-Fi was launched in a hurricane.

It necessitated one of the largest evacuations in US history — 2.9 million residents over five states. 1999’s Hurricane Floyd was an enormous Category 4 storm, and that September it was creeping slowly up the entire east coast from Florida to New England. We had unfortunately scheduled our Wi-Fi launch event — the public unveiling of the name Wi-Fi, our announcement of the new Wi-Fi Alliance organization, and our plans for interoperability certification — during hurricane season.

The Wi-Fi launch event took place at the Networld/Interop trade show in Atlanta, where our hotel was full of exhausted families of evacuees. But the worst of the storm kept its distance, and the event went off without a hitch — and we could joke to the assembled press that they were witnessing the arrival of Hurricane Wi-Fi.

Read more about the history of Wi-Fi in Beyond Everywhere.