FCC Chairman Ajit Pai issued a statement over the long weekend. Pai wants everyone to know The Commission is ready for whatever happens, as a result of Hurricane Dorian, which is now stalled over the Bahamas and could be headed to Florida. Here’s Pai’s full statement.
“As Hurricane Dorian comes closer to the southeast coast, the FCC has been working throughout the weekend to finalize preparations for the storm and coordinate with our federal and state partners. Our staff has reached out to wireless carriers and broadcasters to offer assistance. With our government partners, including FEMA, we have worked to ensure that communications providers and power companies closely coordinate their activities as needed when service restoration efforts get underway—making sure they implement lessons learned from Hurricane Michael. And we have reminded wireless carriers of the need to have roaming agreements in place before the storm hits.
“Additionally, FCC staff have been deployed to conduct ‘pre-landfall’ surveys of the radiofrequency spectrum in projected impact areas, which will help us identify any impacts to public safety communications and broadcaster outages. We have activated our Disaster Information Reporting System to collect and report information on the status of communications services. And as always, our Operations Center is open 24 hours a day to assist first responders and communications providers. To those who could be in the storm’s path, please heed the advice of local officials and stay safe.”
