NOAA Transmitter Failure During Hurricane Florence

[R8000]

Given that such large natural weather events as tornadoes & hurricanes can and do take down massive critical infrastructure such as water supply & wastewater treatment plants, electrical grids, roadways, bridges, food distribution, and others, I think you're being a liiiiiiitle bit overboard in criticizing NWS on not having these transmitters back in operation as quickly as you think they should be.

Yes, they are important parts of the distribution of WX information. Yes, they should be up as much as possible.

But they are also parts of larger systems, and may be deemed to be in a hierarchy of priorities that is different from what you expect or want. They could be off the air for any of a number of reasons, such as problems at the transmitter site itself (say, no power, and not tied into a generator system) or program distribution ie phone lines or whatever communications media between the Forecast Office & TX site.

Hit the nail on the head

 

[CarolinasFeedNet]

From some of the comments it's obvious that there is some misunderstanding of how the EAS works. It is the government's plan that during an emergency if the internet, cellular network, etc goes down that the NOAA All Hazards Radio network will be the means to disseminate emergency information. NOAA is supposed to be the low-tech back-up to the back-up

 

[mastr]

...it's obvious that there is some misunderstanding of how the EAS works...

There surely is. The VHF NOAA sites will probably never be as reliable as the commercial broadcast station based EAS system.

 

[CarolinasFeedNet]

Charlotte was down 3 days because of the snow