The number of people killed in Florida by Hurricane Ian topped 100 on Monday, days after the storm made landfall at Category 4 strength, decimating coastal towns and leaving rescue crews searching for survivors while communities face the daunting task of rebuilding, according to CNN.
Nearly 600,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Florida still did not have power as of early Monday afternoon, noted PowerOutage.us. Many are without clean tap water, with well over 100 boil-water advisories in places around the state, according to the Florida Health Department.
Some residents and businesses in storm-damaged counties may not be back on the grid for “weeks or months” because of the structural damage caused by the hurricane, said Florida Power and Light President/CEO Eric Silagy. “The amount of water that we received and the height of the surge affected a lot of the infrastructure,” Naples City Manager Jay Boodheshwar told CNN. “So there are transformers that are fried. It is not simply rehanging lines. There are things that may need to be replaced.” Continue Reading
Starlink Satellite Internet
Florida is also working with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to use his company’s Starlink satellite internet service to help restore communication in the state, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. “They’re positioning those Starlink satellites to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas,” said DeSantis.
Cell Sites Impacted
Just under four percent of the cell sites in Ian-impacted areas of Florida were not working Monday, according to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS). Out of a total of 8,097 cell sites, 305 were not operational. The bulk,167, had no power. 128 had data transport problems and 10 were damaged. An additional 375 sites were running on backup power.
That compares to Saturday, when parts of Georgia and South Carolina were in the DIRS report, in addition to Florida. Just over four percent of the cell sites in the total affected areas were out of service.
Now, 30 Florida counties are part of DIRS. They are: Baker, Bradford, Charlotte, Clay, Collier, Desoto, Duval, Flagler, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Manatee, Marion, Monroe, Nassau, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, Union, and Volusia.
Hardee County had the most cell site outages Monday. Eight out of 39 sites weren’t working. That was followed by Charlotte County, where 21 out of 114 were not operational.
Cable and wireline companies reported 474,706 subscribers out of service in the disaster area. This may include the loss of telephone, television, and/or internet services.
Sanibel Police Department Headquarters has been rerouted to another call center with location information. Six FMs, two AMs and one television station said they were off-air.
The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a verbal waiver for Florida public safety officials to use 700-800 MHz interoperability channels. The International Bureau granted a verbal Special Temporary Authority (STA) for two weeks for repair of antennas and other facilities. The purpose of this STA is to allow the provider to operate with facilities that are not covered by their current authorization while they are fixing facilities damaged by Hurricane Ian.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
Reader Interactions