Harvey, Houston and how communications systems are holding up

I've been watching local coverage of the flooding situation... for example...

http://www.khou.com/weather/houston-weather-forecast/62951506

Management of assistance resources appears to, understandably, be the #1 topic.

One topic I've not seen addressed yet is any lack of communications capability. Is the communications infrastructure holding up well and serving organizers and citizens in this unique situation?

 

As of August 28th, ARRL reports:

"...the impact to the region’s communications infrastructure has been relatively minimal so far..."

So ARES is "on standby" pending future needs for after-storm shelters, etc.

See: http://www.arrl.org/news/texas-floo...dvised-to-stay-home-family-safety-comes-first

 

ARES members were told to stay home. Communications infrastructure is minimally affected.

http://www.arrl.org/news/texas-floo...dvised-to-stay-home-family-safety-comes-first

There is no need for anyone to take any risk.

 

After 9/11, both "The Government" and industry took a long hard look at things like communications infrastructure. Lots of "what could POSSIBLY go wrong?" questions - and action to minimize the bad effects.

Stuff like backup generators, hardened shelters, redundant facilities, upgraded systems, etc.

Natural disasters such as Katrina, Sandy, Fukushima and more kept the emphasis going. Nobody wanted to have to answer hard questions about lack of preparedness and obvious vulnerabilities after the fact.

It's all good.

 

I heard that there were 45 minutes to an hour hold time on 911 and that cell service was sporadic because the system was overloaded.

 

soooooo

business like normal it seems

 

It's not business as usual...

Rockford, Texas:

"That included the signal tower outside the centrally located Rockport Police Department.

Emergency radio channels were unavailable, and first responders were limited to "shortwave radios that span only a couple miles," said Matt Jamison, a volunteer firefighter from Fulton.

"There's a lot of people using that one channel, and it's not really effective when you're trying to do a large-scale search-and-rescue (operation)," Jamison said."


Article source:
http://www.caller.com/story/weather...ort-officials-delay-rescue-efforts/605769001/

 

Its bad there and only getting worse. Lots of Volunteer groups with qualified people are sending aid.

This is from FEMA:

• Evacuations:
  
  • TX - mandatory evacuations for 726k people with voluntary
    
    evacuations for over one million people
    
    
  • LA - mandatory evacuations for 6k with voluntary evacuations for
    
    133k people
    
• Modeling projections estimate 67k residential homes affected with 5.5k
  
  with major damage across 16 counties in TX
  
  
• Power outages: 268k customers without power in TX* (DOE Eagle-I as of 7:30
  
  am EDT).
  
  
• Shelters/occupants: 100 / 6k in TX and 1 / 20 in LA (ESF #6 as of 2:00 pm EDT, August 28)
  -----------------------------
  And one of the local Dams/Reservoirs has water flowing over the top, if that goes, look out.
  
  This is going to be a long term event.
  
  My thoughts are with everyone in that region.

 

IT'S ALL GOOD____REALLY!!!! Do you live down there> HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

When they speak of comms. They ain't talking about you being able to call cousin Larry. They are talking about emergency comms among the various agencies. That is working well as you could expect. Granted, I have no idea how
they can do this without Billy Bob wearing his lime green vest with his trusty call sign hat and his Chinese radios stuck in his utility belt with extra batteries running around checking in on the net. Its gotta be tough without him.