The first FCC Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) report covering Hurricane Francine shows just over nine percent of cell sites in the areas of Louisiana and Mississippi impacted by the storm were not operating Thursday morning. Francine was downgraded to a tropical depression yesterday after making landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 storm on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm came ashore in Terrebonne Parish, around 30 miles south-southwest of Morgan City, with maximum sustained winds of around 100 mph, according to YahooNews. Meteorologists reported heavy rain was moving across portions of Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, Tennessee, Georgia and eastern Arkansas on Thursday, and warned “this rainfall could lead to locally considerable flash and urban flooding.”
Thirty Louisiana parishes are part of the area in which network outage data was submitted by carriers. A total of 240 cell sites out of the 2,050 in the DIRS coverage area were not working as of Thursday morning. Most of those cell sites had no power and 201 sites were operating on back-up power. Jefferson Parish had the most cell sites out at 39, and Orleans Parish had 35.
Fifteen counties in Mississippi are part of the area in which network outage data was submitted by carriers. Just 15 out of the 681 total cell sites were not operational yesterday morning. Most were out due to data transport issues. Pearl River County had the most outages, with seven sites not working.
No 911 call centers were impacted in either state, according to DIRS. Cable and wireline companies reported 135,980 subscribers out of service in the disaster area. This includes the loss of telephone, television, and/or internet services. No television, FM or AM stations were reported to be off the air in either state.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
Reader Interactions