Hurricane Helene Mostly Spares Emergency 911

Only one public safety answering point has been reported down in the area affected by Hurricane Helene, according to the FCC’s disaster information reporting system release Friday. The DIRS report shows outages that communications providers submitted as of 9 a.m. EDT Friday. “The operational status of communications services during an event may evolve rapidly, and this report represents a snapshot in time,” said the release. The affected PSAP, the Jefferson County Sherriff’s Office in Jefferson County, Florida, was rerouted, the DIRS release said.

National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes had received no reports of 911 center outages by Friday morning, he told us in an interview. “For a hurricane of this category, I was a bit surprised,” said Fontes, adding that he had mentally prepared himself for a much worse initial situation. National Association of State 911 Administrators members hadn’t reported any 911 problems from Hurricane Helene as of Friday afternoon, NASNA Executive Director Harriet Rennie-Brown said.

Although Fontes said he had not heard of any 911 center outages, the NENA official shared a report he received Friday afternoon that said the floods had affected 12 PSAPs in western North Carolina. Ten had issues routing calls and two were using alternative routing methods, he said. Also, Fontes noted that wireless carrier outages could have affected people’s ability to call 911 from cellphones. The 911 official recalled far more damage to carrier infrastructure and 911 during Hurricane Katrina, which was Category 3 when it struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. With Helene, “there was perhaps better preparation of the resources necessary to deal with the after-effects of a storm of this magnitude,” said Fontes. Building codes also have improved since Katrina, he said. In addition, data is better now and people “took the warnings quite seriously.”

The regional 911 center in hard-hit Pinellas County, Florida, “handled more than 6,000 calls, with around 900 calls during the peak hour at 9 p.m.,” during the 24-hour period from midnight Sept. 26 to midnight Sept. 27, the county’s spokesperson emailed us. “The system experienced no technical issues.” However, the hazardous weather meant that “first responders were unable to initially respond to some calls,” the spokesperson said Friday. “Fire departments and other first responders are working throughout the day to respond to those calls that could not be handled yesterday due to severe flooding and other storm conditions.”

Some Fiber Cuts

The DIRS report showed that the storm knocked out 5.6% of cellsites in the affected area, which includes counties in Florida, Georgia and both Carolinas. Florida shows 660 cellsites down, while Georgia has 905, North Carolina 58 and South Carolina 111. The DIRS report also shows 380,087 cable and wireline subscribers without service in the affected counties. One TV station in the affected area -- in Georgia -- was knocked out, along with 10 FMs and three AMs. Three FMs and one AM are down in Florida, three FMs and one AM in North Carolina, and one FM and four AMs in South Carolina, the report said.

About 1 million Floridians lacked power Friday, according to a Florida Public Service Commission outage report released at noon that day. However, some counties still had more than 99% of accounts without power, including Columbia, Dixie, Jefferson, Taylor and Union. Florida state offices have been closed since Wednesday afternoon, a Florida PSC spokesperson said. More than 4.3 million electric customers across seven states lacked power Friday morning, PowerOutage.us posted on X.

The hurricane “brought massive devastation throughout the area resulting in power outages and fiber damage,” said Verizon. “With power outages widespread throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina many cell sites are running on backup power as designed, and massive refueling operations are underway to ensure those sites without commercial power remain in service for Verizon customers and first responders.” Verizon fiber “was damaged in some areas with a number of cuts from the high winds, debris and flooding caused by the storm," the company said. “Teams are evaluating alternate connections to bring those sites back online.”

“Our network and engineering teams are on the ground and assessing sites across Helene’s path to identify damage,” T-Mobile said. "Overlapping coverage and hardening efforts, including permanent generators at cell sites, switches, Customer Experience Centers and other locations, have helped to keep customers connected where available. However, we have identified some interruption of service due to commercial power loss and storm-related damage.” The carrier said it activated unlimited talk, text and data for customers in many affected areas.

AT&T said the hurricane affected its wireless and wireline networks throughout the Southeast. “We know customers in affected areas may be experiencing home phone, internet service and cell phone interruptions due to commercial power outages and widespread flooding,” said AT&T. "Where it is safe to do so, we are deploying additional backup power to our facilities and refueling generators as needed. All our major network facilities remain online; however, some are currently running on a backup power source."

Comcast said its “teams were out early [Friday] morning to assess potential extreme wind and rain damage to our facilities and locate any broken poles and downed lines.” Comcast will temporarily give free access to its 52,000 Xfinity Wi-Fi hot spots.

Charter Communications’ Spectrum had more than 22,000 user-reported problems along Helene’s path, said Ookla, citing data on its Downdetecter website. One-third reported internet connectivity issues, while 27% reported a total blackout and 20% reported no signal, Ookla said. The most reports about Spectrum connectivity problems were in Charlotte, Tampa and Orlando, it said.

“Spectrum is fully committed to ensuring that customers stay connected, and services are restored swiftly following any disruption,” said a Charter spokesperson, adding that the company is giving free access to its Wi-Fi access points in affected areas. Power loss causes most outages and Charter services often come back soon after power is restored, said the spokesperson: It could take longer if the cause is power loss to the nearby Spectrum network. “Wherever practical, we will power our network with generators or other backup power. For outages caused by damage to Spectrum’s network or lines, our technicians are responding as quickly as they can safely access these sites.”

"Broadcasters in the towns and cities affected by Hurricane Helene are on the front lines, providing life-saving information and updates," a NAB spokesperson said.