John Bogna
During some of the worst days of Harvey, according to a report by Ars Technica, 17 emergency call centers and 320 cellular sites went down.
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Some 267,000 cable, internet and television customers were also without service as of August 30, according to numbers from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which activated its disaster information reporting system in response to Harvey.
According to the FCC release, the system is voluntary, and providers can use it to report problems and the status of their infrastructure they experience as a result of a disaster.
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The FCC released daily progress reports on the situation, and, as of yesterday, they found there were still 11 emergency call centers down – all but one of them located in Texas.
Fortunately for needy Houstonians, the FCC report stated no emergency call sites were down without a re-route as of the 30th, as well.
There were also no counties with more than 50 percent of cell sites down; areas with the most outages were also those subject to mandatory evacuation.
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Cell sites are built with backup power installed, but can still go down if their backup fails, due to flooding or damage from other high-powered forces, like strong winds.
A large portion of the resources disrupted by the storm were because of power outages.
If you need or would like to help in Houston, read more here.
