Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast of the United States this week, is reportedly the third most intense system to strike the United States in recorded history and is estimated to be the costliest natural disaster in United States history. According to Reuters, an estimated minimum of 2.3 million homes and businesses were without power in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
NOTE: Recent updates include; Ham Radio, Katrina Telecomunications Report, Live From New Orleans, 700 MHz On The Line, WiMax: Trial By FireMore News Maps, Solar Electric to Go, FCC Talks Katrina and Pronto Managing Katrina Network.
ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and USA Today have the latest. Yahoo Full Coverage, DeadlyKatrina.com and StormDigest round up the stories. Craig’s List has the heatbreaking reality.
CyberJournalist.net notes that “citizen journalists” are covering Hurricane Katrina.
See them at:CNN, C/Net, MSNBC, New Orleans Online and the Florida Sun-Sentinel
Blog coverage includes; Reporters’ Log: Hurricane Katrina at BBC, Ohmygawd it’s arriving… at New Orleans Times-Picayune, Metroblogging New Orleans and others. NBC’s Brian Williams writes a great blog. Still, tvnewser, written by a 19-year-old junior at Towson University in Maryland, gets about 27,000 page views a day, about what the NBC news blog gets in a week. Flickr and TextAmerica have photos; live and local.
Directions Magazine is tracking the storm with NOAA maps, but Weather on a Google map, can be customized (by you) to indicate wind speed and direction in micro climates. Show your local public service agencies how to do it.
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New Orleans installed a city-wide wireless video surveillance network using Tropos gear. Tropos can use stock WiFi clients.
City officials are using Sony’s SNC-RZ30N cameras as the “eyes” of the system, and backboning them with wireless and fiber. Sony’s IP cameras feature remote-controlled pan/tilt/zoom, a 25X optical zoom lens, day/night and wireless capabilities.
Florida Unwired
Unfortunately, Gov. Jeb Bush is pushing a law that makes it difficult for municipalities to build their own networks. Meanwhile, Verizon was given a five-year contract for up to 58,000 wireless phones, devices and service, for Florida’s government agencies. |
According to BellSouth, about 198,000 phone lines in Broward County and 156,000 in Miami-Dade County were down Friday as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
In South Florida, BellSouth quickly and restored service to nearly 356,000 customer lines since the beginning of the storm.
| BELLSOUTH NETWORK AREA | CUSTOMERS REPORTED AFFECTED BY KATRINA | PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL LINES AFFECTED IN SERVICE AREA |
BellSouth and Cingular had largely recovered from Katrina’s initial hit Friday in South Florida before the storm strengthened and roared back ashore Monday.
Katrina blasted vulnerable, populous New Orleans and a vast stretch of the Gulf Coast.
“Katrina is our worst nightmare,” said Stan Taylor, manager of BellSouth’s emergency control center with 15 years’ experience dealing with everything from ice storms to hurricanes. The full extent of Katrina’s damage could take days or even weeks to evaluate. It’s clear, however, that Katrina posed many problems for companies with extensive operations in the storm’s path, notably BellSouth, Cingular Wireless and Southern Co., owner of several power companies in the area hit by the storm.
Most long-distance and cellular providers reported trouble, while the dominant local phone provider for the hurricane zone, BellSouth Corp., did not immediately quantify the extent of storm-related service disruptions.
- Many of AT&T Corp. s facilities in the area were operating on backup generator power but some were completely down, likely because of flooding. Long-distance calls could not be properly relayed along AT&T s Gulf Coast fiber-optics routes.
- T-Mobile HotSpot is offering free Wi-Fi at many of its nearly 66 locations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama which have not been forced to close due to the storm.
- Cingular Wireless has mobilized its emergency operations team. Network preparations include the staging of 200 portable generators, more than 30,000 gallons of fuel, dozens of portable cell sites, and several hundred network technicians.Cingular is urging customers to keep non- emergency calls to a minimum or consider text messaging. If customers receive a fast busy or “your call cannot be completed at this time” recording when trying to make a voice call, they should wait 10 seconds before redialing. This allows the original call data to clear the network before the customer tries again.
Cingular also offers consumers these important tips in preparation for the storm:
- Program all emergency contact numbers into your wireless phone. Store numbers for the police department, fire station, hospital, as well as your family members so you don’t have to think about it during and after an emergency.
- Have a family communications plan in place. Designate someone out of the area as a central contact, and make certain all family members know who to contact if they become separated.
- Keep your wireless phone batteries charged at all times. Have an alternate plan to recharge your battery in case of power outages.
- Keep your wireless phone dry and protected.
- Forward your home number to your wireless number in the event of an evacuation.
They also suggest checking live weather and news reports available on many wireless phones with services such as MobiTV and My Cast. While those services hog cellular capacity, they also generate an additional revenue stream for Cingular.
World Communicatins Center is a vendor of Iridium satellite phones and accessories, satellite phone rental programs, and broadband satellite Internet packages including DIRECWAY and StarBand.
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