Florida Counties Reroute 911 Calls After Hurricane Michael

Florida counties are working together to ensure 911 calls are answered from places hit hard by Hurricane Michael, county emergency management officials told us Friday. The hurricane left some Virginia 911 call centers running on generators, state officials there said. The FCC Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) communications status report Friday included nine Georgia counties added Thursday at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s request, bringing the total number of counties covered to 110.

There were no public safety answering point outages, down from one in Florida the previous day (see 1810110060), reported the FCC, using network outage data submitted by 11 a.m. Calls were being rerouted for 15 PSAPs in Florida and Georgia, including seven without automatic location information attached The FCC said 11.5 percent of cellsites were out in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, down from Thursday’s nearly 19 percent, a figure that exceeded damage caused by Hurricane Florence. Four counties in Florida had more than half of cellsites out of service, down from seven counties a day earlier. They were Bay (72.8 percent), Gadsden (58.1 percent), Gulf (65.2 percent) and Washington (56.4 percent). Customers without cable or wireline telecom service increased in all three states, with 252,748 without service in Florida, 103,775 in Georgia and 18,244 in Alabama. Four TV stations, 27 FMs and 5 AMs were reported out.

The 911 system in Florida's Santa Rosa County “performed throughout Hurricane Michael with no issues,” said Scott Markel, the county’s emergency communications chief. “We staffed additional personnel in anticipation of the storm and had no problems with call load.” Santa Rosa, with south Florida and Okaloosa County, is giving assistance to hard-hit Bay County through mutual aid, he said. “We are also handling 911 calls from Jackson County ... until they can get their center back operational. Calls are very few from Jackson County due to the phone infrastructure being impacted by the hurricane.” Escambia County is handling calls for Gadsden County, he added.

Florida’s Leon County started receiving 911 calls from other counties when the hurricane knocked out telecom infrastructure, said Kevin Peters, the county’s emergency management director. “Leon County worked with our telephone service provider to route calls … to closer counties on the west side of the area of landfall that could provide quicker assistance.” The hurricane didn’t affect Leon County’s 911 system or 800 MHz radio system, he said.

Federal push crews are clearing downed trees and debris blocking paths of utilities trying to restore power, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said Friday. The Florida Public Service Commission, closed through Monday, is reporting power outages on its website, a spokeswoman said.

Three local 911 centers in Virginia went on generator power, but held up and didn’t seek state assistance, said a Virginia Department of Emergency Management spokesperson. The Virginia State Corporation Commission hasn’t received any reports from LECs about public safety answering point outages, said SCC Information Resources Division Director Ken Schrad. “Based on informal dialogue with several local exchange carriers, we are not aware of any widespread communications outages or significant physical impacts to communications infrastructure. However, local flooding and power outages have likely resulted in some communications company equipment and offices running on generators.”