With Laura weakening, the State Operations Center ending its monitoring at 2 pm today, and storm-related traffic not materializing as much as it could have, the NTS Status has been lowered from RESPONDING to Monitoring and will remain at this level through end of day Saturday. At that time, unless storm-related traffic begins to flow out of southern Louisiana as storm assessments take place, the status will lower to Normal Operations.

Key items at this point:

• Traffic handlers may resume listing normal traffic.
• However, please hold off on routine traffic into affected areas (mainly southern Louisiana) for at least the next few days to allow time for response and recovery efforts to take place. We may seem storm-related traffic as impact is assessed.
• While we did not see large amounts of storm-related traffic, the Texas State Operations Center and several Emergency Operations Centers were checked into traffic nets during the storm, and some storm-related traffic includes an inquiry about a marina in Lake Charles, along with general questions to net control stations related to the storm.
• The 7290 Traffic Net will continue operating extended hours through Saturday
• Tomorrow from 1000 hours to 1500 hours (10:00 am to 3:00 pm Central Daylight Time)
• Saturday from 1000 hours to 1400 hours (10:00 am 2:00 pm)
• Normal hours resume thereafter
• The NTS Status Dashboard will remain as-is through end of day Saturday, at which point I will update it to indicate normal operations and wind down the weather-related content. I will keep this page available as a tool going forward for future incidents that may warrant traffic system response.

I will also mention that ARES Status is now at Normal Readiness for all North Texas ARES Districts.

Unless we see a rise in storm-related traffic as assessments continue in south Louisiana, this will be my last update regarding Laura and traffic system response.

With the response winding down, I’d like to reflect on how traffic handlers inside and outside of the Section came together to help, including several that contacted me directly to understand how else they could help right now, and confirmations that folks were holding routine traffic for the moment to help make sure storm-related traffic remained front and center to relay through the system. I am very thankful for everyone coming together to jump in and help. This is what really makes the traffic system such a powerful resource and tool, and while I would prefer that we not be needed, I am proud of our ability to provide quality emergency communications should we be called upon to assist.

73,

Aaron