Texas Radio system holds up during Ike

[SCPD]

From Mission Critical Communications Magazine http://mccmag.com/onlyonline.cfm?OnlyOnlineID=56

Texas Radio System Holds Up During Ike
September 30, 2008

By Lindsay A. Gross

The Harris County, Texas, radio communications system held its own during and after Hurricane Ike with only minimal effects on tower sites and overall network performance, county officials said.

 

[chrismol1]

Sweet!!! Success!! At Last! btw: it was a motorola system!!

 

[motorola_otaku]

"Minimal effects on tower sites and overall network performance" included both the Pasadena and Baytown sites going off the air on several occasions during the weekend following the storm, and in and out of site trunking when they were on the air due to loss of T1 connectivity. For a while it was panic in the streets in Pasadena, with fire command split across the Pasadena, Baytown and Downtown sites (and isolated from one another when site trunking kicked in) and PD command split between Patrol 1 on the above three sites and I-Tac 2 simplex. Granted, not all of that was ITC's fault (Pasadena PD's backup generator failed during the height of the storm), but still, don't let anyone tell you it was all roses either. And although I personally was not able to hear it, I've heard from several people that the Tomball site went off the air as well.

To be fair, though, Downtown stayed up, and both Galveston County sites stayed up and networked for the duration of the storm. Given the amount of water Galveston took, that is nothing short of amazing.