FCC Activates DIRS for Hurricane Florence; Postpones DIRS Exercise

The FCC issued a Public Notice activating its Disaster Information Reporting Service (DIRS) as Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm, is set to make landfall in the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic regions causing catastrophic flooding, high winds, and heavy rains. Broadcasters and other communications providers in those regions are encouraged to voluntarily supply certain filings with the Federal Communications Commission. These voluntary filings are meant for communications providers to report their infrastructure status and information during emergency situations.

The DIRS has been activated and reports are requested beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Sept. 13 and every day thereafter by 10:00 a.m. until the DIRS is deactivated. During this time, the Network Outage Reporting System obligations have been suspended until the DIRS is deactivated.

The FCC has asked broadcasters, cable operators, and wireless and wireline telecommunications (including VoIP) providers in areas affected by the storm in those regions to submit and update information through DIRS regarding the status of their communications equipment, restoration efforts, and power situation (for instance, power failure backup systems). Providers who haven't previously submitted to the DIRS must provide contact information and obtain a User ID to access DIRS.

Additional information can be found at https://www.fcc.gov/florence. Reach out to us if you have any questions on submitting reports to the DIRS, or other disaster-related issues. This also means that the DIRS exercise, previously scheduled for Sept. 13-14, has been postponed.

But most important of all: please stay safe as you continue to provide much-needed public safety updates to your communities!