BATON ROUGE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 13, 2026--
As Baton Rouge gets ready for the Texas-LSU matchup, Bloom Energy is joining the community off the field to support two organizations making a difference for families across Louisiana.
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On Friday, Bloom Energy visited Baton Rouge Fire Station 12 to recognize the work of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Civic Collaborative Foundation, two organizations helping strengthen communities and support Louisianans in times of need. As part of the event, Bloom Energy presented each organization with a $10,000 donation.
“Keeping communities safe depends on the people and organizations that strengthen them every day,” said Natalie Sunderland, Chief Marketing Officer at Bloom Energy. “For decades, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Civic Collaborative Foundation have stood alongside Louisiana families and helped communities rebuild and move forward. We’re proud to support their work and the lasting resilience they’re building across Baton Rouge and South Louisiana.”
“We’re so thankful for Bloom Energy’s generosity in Baton Rouge, and for the tireless dedication of first responders everywhere,” said Chris Meyer, president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Civic Collaborative Foundation. “This grant will allow our community to better prepare for disasters before they happen and equip the brave men and women of the Baton Rouge Fire Department to respond more effectively.”
Among the largest community foundations in the country, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation seeks to improve the quality of life in greater Baton Rouge and across south Louisiana by supporting local nonprofits, engaging community leaders and partnering with others to create positive regional change.
Civic Collaborative Foundation, a Baton Rouge-based nonprofit that shares leadership and administrative support with the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, provides temporary relief to individuals and families facing financial hardship after natural and man-made disasters along the Gulf Coast and helps Louisiana communities prepare for and recover from disasters.
The donations reflect Bloom Energy’s commitment to supporting the communities it serves and partnering with local organizations that are helping build stronger, more resilient communities.
Bloom will also be on campus Saturday ahead of the Texas-LSU game as ESPN Radio’s College Football Campus Tour powered by Bloom Energy brings its live broadcast and interactive Fan Zone to Baton Rouge.
Upcoming Confirmed 2026 Tour Stops
About Bloom Energy
Bloom Energy empowers enterprises to meet soaring energy demands and responsibly take charge of their power needs. The company’s fuel cell systems provide ultra-reliable, clean and highly scalable onsite electricity for Fortune 500 customers around the world, including data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, large utilities and other commercial and industrial sectors, as well as mission-critical organizations in local communities, such as hospitals, college campuses and retailers. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Bloom Energy employs more than 2,000 people worldwide and manufactures its systems in the United States. For more information, visit BloomEnergy.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will” and “would” or the negative of these words or similar terms or expressions that concern Bloom’s expectations, strategy, priorities, plans or intentions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the impact of the contribution to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Civic Collaborative Foundation. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties detailed in Bloom’s SEC filings. More information on potential risks and uncertainties that may impact Bloom’s business are set forth in Bloom’s periodic reports filed with the SEC, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the SEC on February 9, 2026, its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2026, June 30, 2026 and September 30, 2026, filed with the SEC on April 29, 2026, July 28, 2026 and October 22, 2026, respectively, as well as subsequent reports filed with or furnished to the SEC. Bloom assumes no obligation to, and does not intend to, update any such forward-looking statements.
Bloom Energy Supports Louisiana Disaster Relief Ahead of Texas-LSU Matchup
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon due to communications problems at regional air traffic control centers, an FAA notice said.
The ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” according to the notice.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue was affecting the regional air traffic control centers that direct planes between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating.
This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”
Here is the latest:
The communications problems that led to the nationwide halt to flights don’t appear to be linked to the FAA’s new AI-powered system the agency is rolling out to help predict problems in the sky.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there’s no indication yet that the problems are linked to the new computer system or any kind of terrorist attack.
The FAA’s SMART system is based in a single location near Washington, D.C., where a team of experts analyzes flight schedules, weather forecasts and hundreds of other streams of data. Then that office sends recommendations to the FAA’s command center that relays them to controllers across the country for consideration.
The company that designed the system, ASI, said “the current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.”
Travelers just passing through security at Chicago O’Hare Airport learned about the ground stop when they gazed up at screens that showed flight delays across the board.
Some called friends or family members, debating whether to stay the night in Chicago or find another way to their destinations.
Amber McQuilkin sat on a bench nearby, disappointed that she might miss a trip with friends to New York for the League of Legends world finals. Her friends, she said, had already arrived there.
“There’s not really any information being passed to me,” said the Seattle software engineer, who took a week of vacation for the trip. “I contemplated just abandoning the flight and driving, but then the more I thought about it, the more I’m like, that would be miserable.”
Austin Curtis and his wife were rethinking their trip from South Bend, Indiana, to a friend’s baby shower in Denver after getting delayed during a layover in Chicago.
They had boarded their flight to Denver from O’Hare International Airport when they were told to get off the plane.
“We did see them taking luggage off our plane and others, so we’re assuming it’s going to be a pretty substantial delay,” Curtis said.
They were unsure whether to get a hotel room or keep waiting out the delay at the airport. With care already in place for their two young children at home, they might stay the weekend in Chicago, he said.
“We might just make the most of it,” Curtis said.
Aviation professor Skip Bailey said the reason they teach them that is so they will be prepared if the radio on their plane malfunctions. He said no one expects air traffic controllers nationwide to lose the ability to communicate.
Pilots are expected to maintain the headings and vectors that controllers gave them before the problem. And then if the outage continues, they revert to following their filed flight plan. Pilots may also be able to communicate with each other over the radio even if they can’t talk to controllers. And airliners have their own radar systems.
“It’s not mass chaos out there. There’s plenty of ways to try to communicate,” said Bailey, who teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s aviation institute. “But not letting anybody take off again obviously is extremely important because we don’t want to put more aircraft into a system that’s already having an issue.”
Jeff Dubner was still waiting to disembark his plane an hour and a half after leaving the gate at Los Angeles International Airport.
His Alaska Airlines flight to Washington, D.C., was already half an hour late and was taxiing to the runway when the plane came to a halt.
Dubner heard about the nationwide ground stop from somebody behind him, he said by phone from the tarmac.
“It’s frustrating. This certainly sounds like it’s going to be more than the usual run of the mill delay. I look forward to finding out why,” said Dubner, a Washington, D.C., attorney.
But passengers were taking things in stride. Even a baby near him had calmed down, Dubner said.
Both airlines said in statements on X that flights already in the air will continue.
United Airlines said while domestic flights will not depart, “international departures are being managed on a case-by-case basis by the FAA.”
American Airlines said it expects disruptions for the rest of the day.
“It will be all hands on deck across American to get customers on their way as soon as possible when the FAA lifts this nationwide ground stop,” the airline said.
A Delta passenger flying from Detroit to Fort Lauderdale recorded video of the captain explaining the ground stop during a midair announcement.
He tells passengers that other planes will be unable to depart, but they are still on track to land at their destination within the hour, according to footage shared with The Associated Press by passenger Andrew Gillfillan.
A photo also taken by Gillfillan shows rows of passengers watching live broadcasts about the ground stop on their seatback televisions.
Sean Carey was waiting for his flight at Chicago O’Hare Airport when his grandparents and other family members called and texted him from Las Vegas to let him know about the ground stop. He was planning to travel there for a family wedding.
“I’m surprised the airport’s not in more disarray,” he said.
If he can’t get on a flight for the wedding Saturday, he only hopes he gets a refund and plans to visit another time.
“I hope everyone gets home safely and gets to where they need to go safely,” he said.
Mullin said communication systems had been affected, triggering the nationwide ground stop, but he provided few other details. He said officials continue to investigate the causes.
They are able to communicate “at certain levels,” he said. “But it’s overwhelmed some of the systems we have.”
Mullin said flights are continuing to land during the stoppage and that, for now, officials are working to “make sure” that “we get the flights down and then we get a normal operations back up.”
Mullin said it’s not yet known what caused the communications outages, but “we’re gonna find out what happened.”
He added that he’s not going to make assumptions and encouraged others to do the same.
Asked if there may be a connection to Thursday’s Microsoft outage, Mullin said officials are not ruling anything out.
Officials are dealing with midair flights on a case by case basis and working to help them land safely, he added.
“There is no indication — and we had no reason to believe that — as of right now, that this was a threat to the United States,” Mullin said.
“This was a telecommunication outage,” Mullin told reporters outside the White House.
He said details were still emerging, but that the president had been briefed.
Mullin said the immediate priority was ensuring that planes still in the air would be landing safely, but that there was no clear information on how long the stoppage might last.
He also downplayed comparisons to the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, saying, “This isn’t the same comparison to 9/11. That’s a road I won’t go down.”
The federal agency said on social media that there has been a temporary telecommunications outage.
All flights have been accounted for and international flights will be “handled on a case by case basis,” the agency said.
“There was no indication as of yet this was a nefarious attack against us,” said U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin.
All flights in the air are accounted for, he said during a news conference, adding that the public has no reason to be afraid.
The FAA’s ground stop order runs through at least 11 p.m. ET Friday.
Passengers on an American Airlines flight from Wichita to Chicago on Friday afternoon received text messages explaining the problem as “air traffic conditions in Chicago.”
The plane sat on the runway for about an hour before the captain announced the air traffic problem seemed to be nationwide, and the plane would return to the gate.
Passengers deboarded and the airline said no one would be rebooked for at least an hour.
Former United Airlines pilot and aviation expert Steve Arroyo said the problem appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast, except this time on a nationwide scale.
Arroyo said it could be linked to the outdated technology used by air traffic controllers.
“If you don’t have that ability, whether it’s because the old wires that they have are just run down or for whatever reason, you’ve got to stop airplanes on the ground,” said Arroyo. “And not put them in the air where you’re going to risk not being able to communicate with them.”
A key FAA computer system malfunctioned, temporarily grounding all flights nationwide and touched off a cascading air traffic jam.
Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon because of communications problems at regional air traffic control centers.
The FAA notice said the ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said there is a communications issue affecting the 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct planes en route between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating.
This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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FILE - A Federal Aviation Administration logo is displayed in the tower at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, March 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
