What O.J., Katrina, and 9/11 did to AT&T's network

When major news events, natural disasters, or severe weather strike, telecom networks get slammed with calls, e-mails, texts, video uploads, tweets and other demands.

At its Global Network Operations Center in Bedminster, N.J., AT&T (T) monitors those events in a room that looks like NASA's mission control. With 141 huge LCD displays, AT&T's engineers keep watch for anomalies.

The photo above shows what those screens look like during normal operations. That's a stark contrast to what the U.S. map looks like during an emergency. Click through to see what AT&T's network showed during some of the biggest news events of the past two decades.

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