Texas Officials See Long Road Ahead in Harvey Recovery as Drones, Companies Assist

Southeast Texas won't quickly recover after Tropical Storm Harvey damaged and flooded 911 facilities and utility infrastructure (see 1708290029 and 1708280049), emergency and utility officials said in interviews last week. Surging numbers of calls overwhelmed public service answering points (PSAPs) used to far fewer requests, said one official. Industry officials said providers are working together and continue to restore service and assist with relief. The FAA cleared drones to fly into the area.

Texas 911 systems “held up remarkably well under the circumstances, with tremendous 9-1-1 call volume, along with landline and wireless service going down in areas,” emailed Texas 9-1-1 Alliance CEO Jim Goerke. But it may take many months to a year to recover damaged PSAPs in the Corpus Christi area, said Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications Executive Director Kelli Merriweather. Even areas where PSAPs are online face major infrastructure damage, and it may take years to fully recover flooded cities like Houston and Beaumont, she said.

In the southern coastal area near Rockport where the storm made landfall, nearly all PSAPs had to evacuate and Harvey took out landline service and flooded or destroyed most wireless towers, said Merriweather: “It got wiped out.” Public safety is rerouting 911 calls there to Corpus Christi or individual PSAPs’ administrative lines, she said. Rain and flooding inland forced evacuation of all but two PSAPs in Victoria, but they’ve since come back online, Merriweather said. In Beaumont, one PSAP went down but most stayed operational to handle surging call volumes, she said.

Houston’s 911 systems didn’t break, but call takers were overwhelmed by the unprecedented increase in calls, Merriweather said. “Their average daily call volume is about 8,000 calls,” she said. “In the first 24 hours [of the storm], they got 56,000.” Beaumont and Port Arthur also faced many-fold increases.

The Texas Public Utility Commission sees much work ahead restoring utilities, commissioners and staff said Thursday's commissioners' meeting (see 1708310022). “There are parts that are just now beginning to recover, and there will be a long haul ahead, but it was inspiring the way Texans came together and I want to commend our utilities,” Commissioner Kenneth Anderson said. Commissioner Brandy Marquez said she observed linemen in many different uniforms at work restoring utility poles. “We do have a long way to go, but can’t mess with Texas,” she said. “This is a big test on all of us and everyone’s rising to the occasion.”

To smooth implementation of the governor’s proclamations related to the disaster, commissioners adopted an order in docket 47522 on the Harvey recovery. The agency has an emergency management response team at the state operation center working around the clock during emergencies, a spokesman emailed. “It consists of 13 employees ... who do double-duty as part of the team to coordinate emergency information with other state agencies.” Varied agencies work together to provide phone service to areas affected by outages, he said.

Telco Outages

Some CenturyLink customers are experiencing internet and phone outages “due to extreme flooding and power outages,” a spokeswoman said Friday. “We are offering Emergency Call Forwarding and other services to many customers in the area to assist them during this disaster.” The call-forwarding service allows affected customers to get home or business calls on an alternative number and will be free for 90 days, she said.

Frontier Communications continues to assess the situation and outages, a spokeswoman said Friday. The carrier still has facilities on generator backup, but commercial power is being restored to others, and the company late last week sent in more teams as more areas became accessible, she said. Wednesday, Frontier said 100 central offices lacked commercial power or were operating on backup.

Consolidated Communications is checking backup batteries and generators in areas with power outages, the company said in a Thursday update. The carrier, which activated its Emergency Operations Center Aug. 25, reported no widespread network outages or major network impacts.

Several Texas members of USTelecom, including Big Bend Telephone, GVTC Communications and Southwest Texas Telephone, didn’t have service interruptions, the association blogged. It said companies from around Texas are sending help to businesses in affected areas, and Orlando-based Smart City Telecom flew staff to Texas to help maintain Wi-Fi and voice networks for people taking refuge at the George R. Brown Convention Center and NRG Stadium in Houston.

Cox told us it was "business as usual" in its Louisiana markets, with a few "very short-lived" outages on Wednesday due to power issues. Charter Communications emailed that some customers along Southeast Texas coastal areas were experiencing service interruptions Friday, mostly in the Golden Triangle (Beaumont/Port Arthur) and Corpus Christi areas -- the vast majority due to commercial power failures affecting residential areas or parts of the local Spectrum network. The cable ISP said Spectrum stores in Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange were closed Friday but were expected to reopen soon. Comcast didn't comment. Charter, Hearst and others continued (see 1708300054) recovery efforts, fundraising and donations.

FCC Efforts, Drones

Across the 64 Texas and Louisiana counties and parishes affected by Harvey, 2.4 percent of cellsites were down as of Friday, the FCC said in a communications status report, down from 3.8 percent Thursday. It said no county or parish had more than 35 percent of its cellsites out of service. The agency said nine radio stations and two TV stations were out of service, the same as on Thursday, and Texas still had seven PSAPs down, the same as Thursday. It also said at least 238,259 wireline and cable subscribers were without service, down from at least 270,139 Thursday.

The FCC, at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had extended (see 1708310049) its Disaster Information Reporting System to receive information on the status of communications equipment in nine additional counties in Texas. AT&T noted Friday the FTC and FEMA have issued consumer alerts that Harvey victims are being targeted by fraudsters using insurance robocall scam calls (see here), something the FCC's Twitter feed also alerted people to.

Louisiana had few telecom outages due to Harvey, said a Louisiana Public Service Commission spokeswoman. "Cameron Parish saw some damage to their infrastructure and the Sheriff's Office had to re-route 911 calls" from Tuesday to Wednesday, the official emailed. The storm affected three cellsites in Calcasieu, St. John the Baptist and Terrebonne parishes, representing "only a very small percentage of overall sites" in the state, she said. "We received communications from the ILECs and major CLECs in the affected areas, alerting us to minor issues and detailing the status of their systems."

As of Thursday morning, 43 unmanned aircraft system authorizations had been issued to drone operators for Harvey response and recovery efforts or for media coverage, the FAA said Friday. They included eight to a railroad company for surveying damage along a rail line, while five others were for oil and energy company inspections of their facilities and of local power grid components. The Small UAV Coalition said UAS operators also are using drones to ensure communications for first responders and the public and that the operators "look forward ... to safely assist[ing] the region in not only the immediate aftermath of the storm, but also in restoration efforts."