Update text, about 9pm, from my niece who lives in Ohio about her parents and sister in New Orleans:
Wanted to let you all know everyone is doing fine in NOLA. My parents are out of power and the cell towers are down, but they can still text. No damage to the house. Their neighbors all stayed and have generators, so they will hang out with them, if need be.
Sarah is doing well in the hospital. Nothing too serious as far as damage. She can text and has access to a satellite phone.
My sister lived in this same house during Katrina. They evacuated for Katrina but when they came back, the extent of their damage was, "missing two roof shingles."
In reply to yupididit :
Take the money and run towards that W109!
I gotta agree with dxman92.
Not a lot of information that I'm seeing on the news sites. Guess it's still to early.
In reply to Stampie :
Still raining & windy here. Other than our tree catching on fire last night everything has been fine. Tbh reading that sentence sounds way worse than it was - a branch weighed down onto the line out over the street & there was a bit of flame & smoldering at the point of contact. Of course everything was drenched so there was zero chance of it spreading, and the lineman was here within an hour to saw it off.
I'd volunteered to back the RV up to it, strap myself to the ladder & use my pole saw to cut it down, but for some reason she said no.
Cooter
UberDork
8/30/21 10:06 a.m.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
You must be worth more than your life insurance payout.
You must be doing something right.
Stampie said:
Not a lot of information that I'm seeing on the news sites. Guess it's still to early.
Never seen this little information before. Guess it's not as important to them as all the "stuff" they are busy feeding us 
I did hear power is out, and the cell towers are down, but they can still text???
03Panther said:
I did hear power is out, and the cell towers are down, but they can still text???
A simplified answer is...
The cell network is overburdened. A text requires less network resources to deliver than the resources needed to send a live call.
For a call, if you can't get "on the network" at that moment the call will either fast busy or drop. A text doesn't have to be sent instantly. The message can que up and be delivered significantly later.
Jerry
PowerDork
8/31/21 8:11 a.m.
One friend came back up to NKY to ride it out. My former room mate in New Orleans said he's lost power and communications are spotty, but he was able to post this on Facebook so... He shared some photos of wind damage to fences and his RV. He lives about 1/2hr north of NO.
I don't miss living there. (Did about a year after the Navy. More fun to visit than live.)
John Welsh said:
03Panther said:
I did hear power is out, and the cell towers are down, but they can still text???
A simplified answer is...
The cell network is overburdened. A text requires less network resources to deliver than the resources needed to send a live call.
For a call, if you can't get "on the network" at that moment the call will either fast busy or drop. A text doesn't have to be sent instantly. The message can que up and be delivered significantly later.
And I as understand it, texts are send on a different radio band than calls are. It uses the band that locates the closest towers, keeps the time up to date, etc.
Which was why when texting first became popular texts were limited to 140 characters.
But I don't know if this is true anymore.
