FCC, States Brace for Hurricane Florence

The FCC continues preparing for Hurricane Florence in coordination with state and federal partners, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday. It activated the disaster information reporting system, with reports requested from some counties in Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas starting at 10 a.m. Thursday, said a public notice. “Staff have already been deployed to survey the radiofrequency spectrum across critical areas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, and our Operations Center is open 24 hours a day,” Pai said. “Our staff has also reached out to broadcast associations, wireless carriers, and other telecom companies in the areas expected to be hit by Hurricane Florence. We will closely monitor communications outages data in the coming days and work to support restoration and recovery.” Pai urged people in affected areas to charge devices and sign up for emergency alerts. Carriers announced preparations this week (see 1809110046). Some state commissions also released alerts, with North Carolina and South Carolina agencies announcing closures. The FCC Public Safety Bureau should ensure emergency information in Spanish is available in four radio markets in the path of Florence that lack sufficient Spanish-language radio stations, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the League of United Latin American Citizens in a letter Wednesday. “Intervention is necessary because it does not appear that the region’s broadcasters have [emergency alert system] plans that address the urgent needs of speakers of Spanish." Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Hilton Head, South Carolina, have Hispanic populations of more than 10 percent, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is 5.8 percent Hispanic, the groups said. The Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville, North Carolina, radio market is 8.5 percent Hispanic, a population of more than 59,000 people, the letter said. “We ask that lifesaving information be broadcast in the referenced markets” at periodic intervals throughout the day “by at least one station in each market that survives the hurricane,” they said.