Power outages are decreasing and more cell sites are returning to service in Hurricane Laura-impacted areas of Louisiana and Texas. Some 294,999 households in Louisiana were without power on Monday. That compares to about 342,000 Sunday in Louisiana, according to PowerOutageUS. In Texas, more than 58,000 had no power on Monday, compared to 74,000 on Sunday.
Of the 4,650 cell sites served in Louisiana, 254 were out yesterday; that compares to 362 out of service Sunday. The majority of the towers in Louisiana not working yesterday (153) was due to damage to transport, which refers to issues with the network that sends information to and from cell towers. 73 had no power and seven were damaged, according to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS).
Cameron Parish — near where Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane early Thursday morning — has the greatest proportion of cell towers that are out of service with 21 out of 29 sites offline (just over 72 percent). That compares to 25 sites (86 percent) in Cameron Parish that were non-operational Sunday.
In Calcasieu Parish, which also saw widespread damage around Lake Charles, 101 out of 185 cell sites (about 54 percent) were non-operational Monday; That compares to 121 (just over 65 Percent) on Sunday.
Texas has few cell site outages now, according to the report. Just three counties are now impacted, compared to 115 on Sunday. Of the 354 cell sites served yesterday, 8 were not working. Three had no power, 4 had transport issues and one was damaged, according to the FCC. On Sunday, 78 out of 17, 625 cell sites were not working in Texas.
Cable and wireline companies reported 188,985 subscribers out of service in the affected areas, compared to 262,063 on Sunday; the outages may include the loss of telephone, television, and/or internet services. Two television stations, fewer FMs (16 compared to 23 on Sunday) and no AMs reported being off-air yesterday.
Reader Interactions