---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <c07d0a44d64b63f39e60e531ebe07d5a.squirrel@email.fatcow.com> Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2017 04:22:52 -0500 From: "Neal McLain" <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> Subject: How a wireless network prepares for Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey, currently a Category Two hurricane but getting worse, is predicted to make landfall in Texas late Friday or early Saturday. About 1.5 million people are under a hurricane warning, residents are being urged to evacuate, and swathes of southern Texas could be "uninhabitable for weeks or months," the National Weather Service has said. With all that going on, keeping cell service up and running probably wouldn't rank high on your list of priorities. But ensuring connectivity is a vital piece of the puzzle that can keep everything else working. http://bgr.com/2017/08/25/hurricane-harvey-tracker-verizon-network-preparation/ -or- http://tinyurl.com/Verizon-COW My wife and I are members of that 1.5 million people under hurricane warning. We're in Brazoria, Texas, about 20 miles from the Gulf. Right now (4:00 AM) steady wind, light rain. Harvey is on its way. As soon as my wife gets up we'll pack the car and head to Katy, Texas to spend the duration with my daughter and family. I'm blogging it at https://survivingharvey.blogspot.com/ Neal McLain Brazoria, Texas ***** Moderator's Note ***** Sorry to be a spoilsport, but to judge by the hype coming out of the CBS station in Houston, which is running a crawl that says "Hurricane Harvey Slams Into Gulf Coast", Texans are facing the demon child of Katrina and storm-with-no-name. Except they're not. They ran video of the airport, showing the wind and rain - while cabin cruisers glided by on the canal they say is about to overflow its banks. The field reporters, trying ever-so-hard to look heroic, passed the word that power had been out "for over an hour" and showed us a picture of a snapped tree - while their cameras caught background images of residents walking dogs. The Amateur Radio Hurricane net (on 7270 KHz LSB), which I listened to last night, had a report of a weather station on one of the barrier islands, which said that the hurricane had - on a barrier island, mind you - sustained winds of 75 MPH, and gusts to 130 MPH. In other words, Harvey was back down to a category one storm (Oh, excuse me, "Hurricane") AT LANDFALL. Harvey didn't "slam" the gulf coast: more like a brush-by pick- pocketing. A nuisance, to be sure, but hardly life threatening. What we're seeing here is the huge (and hugely expensive) government infrastructure of FEMA and Homeland Security and the state's own disaster-preparedness bureaucracy all pulling together to try to scare everyone into getting away from the coast long before a whiff of salt air reaches Houston or points north, and before the ordure of post-Katrina butt-covering and overreaction reaches the national news desks. The TV station in Houston should be running tag lines like "REMEMBER KATRINA!" and "BE VERY AFRAID FILM AT ELEVEN!" - or at least, an occasional disclaimer that reveals they're doing their best to sell soap in the face of overwhelming odds. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sun, 27 Aug 2017