So far, cellphone networks have weathered Harvey

NEW YORK —Roads, refineries and other infrastructure have taken a beating in the Texas and Louisiana regions hit by Harvey — but cellphone networks so far remain largely functional.

One reason: Big carriers brought in supplemental equipment and backup power and turned to drones to diagnose problems.

Four Gulf Coast counties northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, had more than half of their cell towers knocked out earlier in the week, but crews have been able to restore many of them. As of Thursday, one of the most heavily hit areas, Aransas County, reported 32 percent of its 28 towers out.

That’s down from 95 percent right after the weekend’s storm, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission.

Throughout the affected region, slightly less than 4 percent of cell towers were out.

While cellphone services fared well, hundreds of thousands of people lost landline or other wired phone services, according to the FCC. Some 911 centers had to transfer calls to neighboring centers, while some television stations lost broadcast capabilities.

Here’s a look at communications in the affected regions.

Cellphone Services

All told, the devastating storm knocked out fewer than 400 of the 7,804 cell towers in the affected counties; just 296 were down as of Thursday. By contrast, Hurricane Katrina disabled more than 1,000 cell towers in 2005.

Cell towers typically have backup batteries and generators so they can keep operating in a power outage. The problem comes when generators run out of fuel. Verizon spokeswoman Karen Schulz said crews prepared by topping off all generators ahead of the storm. The company also bought spare fuel and had refueling trucks on standby at key locations.

In a few cases, there’s been damage to the fiber lines that connect cell towers to communications centers. In such cases, it might be possible to get a signal, but the data isn’t going anywhere. Schulz said Verizon has microwave technology to temporarily bridge those gaps.

Verizon and AT&T have both sent out drones to assess damage at cell towers. Crews are still necessary for repairs, but the drone inspections allow companies to determine whether a tower simply needs refueling or requires extensive repair. Cellphone companies also sent truck-based mobile cell towers to areas needing greater capacity.

Emergency Services

As of Thursday, only 7 of the region’s 911 centers were out of service, all in Texas, although all were able to reroute calls to neighboring call centers. That’s down from 11 on Wednesday.

Four of those centers still aren’t able to get callers’ location information automatically, which can be a problem if the caller is unable to speak. Earlier in the week, two centers were down completely, but both have since been restored.

The bigger problem is call volume. Many callers in the Houston area were placed on hold until a dispatcher was free, said Trey Forgety of the nonprofit National Emergency Number Association. In a few cases, callers got busy signals.

“We’re part of the telephone era, so if you want to move calls around (to neighboring centers), you have to go physically rewire things,” he said.

Wired Services

The FCC said that at the peak of the outage, at least 283,000 households lost wired phone services — both traditional landlines and internet phones such as cable. That was down to about 270,000 by Thursday, a slight uptick from Wednesday. In comparison, Katrina knocked out more than 3 million phone lines.

People are far less dependent on wired phone services these days. U.S. households with only cellphone service hit a majority for the first time in the second half of 2016, according to a government survey.

Broadcast Services

The FCC said two Texas television stations — KFDM and KBTV in Beaumont — were out of service as of Thursday, one less than the day before. The outages appeared to affect only over-the-air broadcasts, as the stations streamed their channels online.
Several radio stations also lost service — nine as of Thursday, all in Texas. Five stations were down on Wednesday.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Tornadoes slam southeast Louisiana, injuring dozens

NEW ORLEANS — Brittany Ross remembers she was savoring the smell of her aunt’s simmering white beans when the storm that injured about 40 people in southeastern Louisiana hit.

“The place started shaking, kind of twisting,” she said Tuesday as she stood amid the wreckage at a small trailer park in eastern New Orleans.

The tornado, she said, lifted the trailer off the ground and slammed it down.

Ross, 26, her aunt and two others crawled out of the wreckage amid flying debris — uninjured, but suddenly homeless.

The tornadoes that struck Ross’ home and other parts of southeastern Louisiana destroyed homes and businesses, flipped cars and trucks, and left thousands without power, but no deaths were reported, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.

The governor took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meeting with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same 9th Ward that was so heavily flooded in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and promised that the state will provide the affected residents with the resources they need as quickly as possible.

He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.

The storm ripped apart homes, toppled a gas station canopy, snapped tall power poles and flipped a food truck upside-down. It left shards of metal hanging from trees, and trapped a truck driver as power lines wrapped around his cab.

The wall of severe weather also delivered heavy rain and hail to Mississippi and Alabama.

Artie Chaney said her granddaughter had just pulled up to the house from school.

“(Hail) rocks were falling on the car, and I was looking out the side door and saw the clouds moving fast. I heard this sound. We looked up in the air and we could see debris in the distance and before we knew it, it was just barreling down on us,” Chaney recalled.

“We ran in the house; the lights went out. We ran down the hallway to the middle bedroom and then we just heard glass shattering. We thought we weren’t gonna make it. It seemed like it lasted a long time. It was a horrible experience. We were just so grateful to God that nobody was hurt.”

Chaney said, her voice breaking as she looked at the damage, “We went through all of Katrina, with no damage. I didn’t think I’d be starting over again.”

The Baton Rouge area also got hit. Ascension Parish Sheriff’s spokeswoman Allison Hudson said three people suffered minor injuries and several homes and buildings were damaged in the historic part of Donaldsonville, about 20 miles southwest of the capital.

In Killian, just east of Baton Rouge, the mayor said several houses were destroyed and several others damaged, but an elderly couple suffered the only injuries he knew of: one, a broken leg; the other, a broken arm.

“How you manage to get blown completely across the street with cinderblocks flying and no worse than a couple broken limbs — apparently the good Lord was looking after them,” Mayor Craig McGehee said.

An official at NASA’s Michoud facility in New Orleans said it suffered some structural damage but the deep-space equipment being built there does not appear to have been harmed.

Steve Doering said the hardware and tooling used in the Orion and Space Launch System projects were not damaged, but Michoud will have to make a “significant effort” to cover everything up so any subsequent bad weather doesn’t affect it while the building’s roof and walls are repaired.

Two Mississippi counties reported wind damage, but no injuries, from suspected tornadoes. Other areas of Mississippi saw heavy rain and hail from the storm system that spawned multiple tornadoes in Louisiana. –Kevin McGill

* * *

Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Janet McConnaughey, Chevel Johnson, Rebecca Santana and Gerald Herbert in New Orleans contributed to this report.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

In Hurricane Patricia’s wake, torrential rains move into Louisiana

HOUSTON - Torrential rainstorms battered Louisiana on Sunday, leaving thousands without power, after pounding southeastern Texas as the remnants of Hurricane Patricia converged with a second storm.

The heaviest band of rain moved over the Gulf of Mexico, triggering coastal flood warnings and flash flood watches in southwest Louisiana and soaking New Orleans, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

About 22,000 people were left without power in the greater New Orleans area. Some streets were flooded, while a high tide surge brought some coastal flooding as well.

Rainfall has totaled as much as 7 inches (18 cm) since late Saturday night, and forecasters predicted another 5 inches (13 cm) could fall. The NWS said waterspouts over lakes and tornados over land were both possible into the early morning hours.

"Most of the heavier rain to the west of New Orleans will taper off in the evening ... and for far eastern Louisiana it will probably end closer to midnight," said NWS forecaster Gavin Phillips.

The NWS issued a tornado watch for southeastern Louisiana and coastal Mississippi into early Monday, and warned that severe thunderstorms could develop in the region.

A tornado touched down near the community of Larose, about 45 minutes south of New Orleans, though no serious damage was reported.

Tides along the southern coast of Louisiana were expected to be a few feet above normal at high tide due to sustained winds, likely flooding roads in lower-lying areas, Phillips said.

More than 9 inches (23 cm) of rain swelled rivers and flooded roads around Houston, but no injuries or deaths were reported as flash flood warnings ended.

Petroleum refineries along the US Gulf Coast, which make up more than 40 percent of U.S. capacity, also appeared to be largely undamaged.

In the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin oil fields of south and west Texas, no major production cuts were reported. While the rains were heavy in Houston, they came after a month-long dry spell so flooding was relatively limited.

Texas withstands pummeling

The storms over the past two days drenched a large swath from south of Dallas to the southeast coast, triggering flash flooding in Navarro County, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Dallas, on Saturday.

A Union Pacific freight train carrying cement derailed in Navarro County after a creek overflowed, washing out the tracks. Locomotives and rail cars were pushed on their sides, and a two-person crew was forced to swim to safety.

Repair teams cleared the derailed cars by Sunday morning, but they were not expected to be righted for several hours and the rail line was not due to reopen until Monday at the earliest, Union Pacific spokesman Jeff DeGraff said.

Navarro County was one of the hardest-hit areas. The tiny town of Powell got 20 inches (50 cm) of rain over 30 hours, said meteorologist Brett Rathbun of Accuweather.

Navarro County Sheriff Elmer Tanner reported dozens of rescues from vehicles, homes and businesses since Friday.

In San Antonio, a woman reported her boyfriend was swept into a drainage ditch as he walked his dog early Saturday.

The force of the water washed him out of the underground ditch and he passed out, the San Antonio Fire Department said on Twitter. He later came to and called authorities.

The rain was strengthened by the remnants of Patricia, which was downgraded to a tropical depression after crashing into Mexico's west coast on Friday as a powerful hurricane. —Reuters

Suspect in Louisiana theater rampage had history of mental illness

A 59-year-old man who had been committed to a hospital for psychiatric care was identified by authorities on Friday as the gunman who fatally shot two people in a rampage at a crowded movie theater in central Louisiana before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.

The suspected gunman, John R. Houser, who had a history of mental illness and railed against the US government online, opened fire with a .40 caliber handgun about 20 minutes into the comedy film "Trainwreck," sending panicked theatergoers ducking behind seats and running for the exits. One woman pulled the fire alarm.

"This is a normal movie theater in a normal part of a normal town. This is Anywhere, USA," said Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, who went to the crime scene in the city of Lafayette to meet with law enforcement and victims. "This just shows these senseless acts of violence can literally happen anywhere."

Before purchasing a ticket for the 7 p.m. show, Houser parked his blue Lincoln Continental near the theater's emergency exit in what police said appeared to be preparations for a quick getaway. He had switched its license plates and stashed the keys on top of a tire. Disguises including glasses and women's wigs were later uncovered in a local motel room where he was staying.

"It is apparent that he was intent on shooting and escaping," Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said, who described Houser as an unemployed "drifter" from Phenix City, Alabama.

Houser never made it back to his car. As police swarmed the Grand 16 Theater, located along main thoroughfare in Lafayette, he reloaded his .40 caliber handgun, re-entered the theater and killed himself, police said.

Police said they did not know why the suspect launched the attack in Lafayette, roughly 55 miles (90 km) southwest of the state capital Baton Rouge.

"Certainly it exists out there that we may not find a motive but that's not our goal right now," Colonel Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police told reporters.

Three years after Aurora

The shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings in the United States, including the fatal shooting of five US servicemen in Tennessee, and the massacre of nine African Americans at a South Carolina church in recent weeks.

The latest act of apparently random gun violence came almost three years to the day after 12 people were killed at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado.

It is likely to heat up a festering political debate in the United States over access to weapons and the right to bear arms, protected under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

President Barack Obama had told the BBC in an interview aired on Thursday before the shooting that his biggest frustration was the failure to pass "common-sense gun safety laws."

Authorities said seven were wounded in the Lafayette rampage, three of them critically.

The two victims were identified as Mayci Breaux, 21, from Franklin, Louisiana, and Jillian Johnson, 33, from Lafayette. Breaux was about to begin studies at Lafayette General Hospital to become an x-ray technician. Johnson owned a Lafayette gift shop.

Amanda Rabalais, 19, a college student who frequently shopped at Johnson's store, said she was stunned by the shooting.

"I don't think I can go inside a movie theater for quite some time now. It just really shook my feeling about safety," she said.

Two of the wounded victims were teachers, Jindal said, one of whom told him that she survived the attack because her friend rolled on top of her as bullets rang out. That teacher then managed to pull a fire alarm in the theater, he said.

History of mental illness

Houser had a volatile relationship with his family, who said he had a history of mental illness. A political conservative who joined the Tea Party, Houser was described as a "gadfly" who voiced his views on talk radio and ran for local political office.

In April 2008, he was ordered not to contact his wife, daughter and other relatives after they filed a request for a protective order against him in Carroll County, Georgia.

In the request, Houser's estranged wife, Kellie Houser, said she feared for his "volatile mental state" after he threatened to stop the wedding of his daughter and her boyfriend, according to court records. She said her husband was on daily medications for manic-depression and bipolar disorder at the time.

Earlier, Houser was involuntary committed to a hospital for psychiatric care, according to court documents. His family was concerned he could be a danger to himself and others, according to the petition.

Houser's wife filed for divorce in March after they separated in 2012 following 29 years of marriage, court records show. According to the clerk of court's office the divorce had not been finalized.

Craft, the police chief, said records indicated that Houser, who is white, had no arrests in the last 10 to 15 years, but previously had an arson and a misdemeanor arrest, possibly involving the sale of alcohol to a minor.

He was denied a concealed carry permit in Russell County, Alabama in 2006 because of a report or domestic violence filed against him by his wife in 2005 and a previous arrest, authorities said.

A LinkedIn page that appears to have belonged to Houser describes him as an entrepreneur with a specialty in investment management. He helped run two bars in Georgia from the late 1970s to 2000, the page says. His education included a law degree from Faulkner University, a Christian school in Montgomery, Alabama, and an undergraduate degree in accounting from Columbus State University in Georgia.

Houser was a member of the conservative Tea Party, according to Tea Party Nation.com, and he was a guest host on a now-defunct political commentary show.

A frequent commenter on PoliticalForum.com, a messaging board covering social and political topics, Houser wrote about 200 posts on President Obama, taxes and how "the US is about to fall," using the name Rusty Houser.

In response to a thread in May 2013 about the fall of the United States, Houser wrote: "Truth carries with it an understanding of death. Rather than live without it, I will take death."

Bobby Peters, a former mayor of Columbus, Georgia, said Houser was a local activist who came to council meetings and had hosted a talk show where he interviewed elected officials. Columbus is across the state line from Phenix City, Alabama.

"I'm not going to say that he gave any signs that he was going to do some kind of act like this. Not at all. He was just very erratic," Peters said. — Reuters

Louisiana State shuts down Mississippi State, 19-6

The No. 3-ranked Tigers beat the No. 25 Bulldogs for the 12th time in a row, as Jarrett Lee throws for 213 yards and a touchdown.



Jarrett Lee completed 21 of 27 passes for 213 yards and a touchdown and No. 3 Louisiana State defeated No. 25 Mississippi State, 19-6, on Thursday night in Starkville, Miss.

Lee was the unexpected star, firing conservative, but nearly perfect passes all over the field. His 19-yard touchdown pass to Rueben Randle with 11:56 left in the fourth quarter gave LSU a 16-6 lead.

His only mistake was an interception minutes later, but as it had all game, LSU's defense stuffed Mississippi State with little trouble. LSU, 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the Southeastern Conference, had 14 tackles for a loss and held the Bulldogs (1-2, 0-2) to 193 total yards and two field goals.

Despite Mississippi State's cowbells providing an ever-present backdrop, LSU won its 12th straight game in the series dating to 1999.

Lee's success is quickly making LSU fans forget about expected starter Jordan Jefferson, who has been suspended all season after being arrested for his alleged role in a bar fight in August. Lee wasn't spectacular, but he didn't have to be, calmly managing the game and hitting open receivers downfield.


source:  http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-college-football-notes-20110916,0,5471824.story