Seattle Storm Reports Issued

The state of Washington has issued its emergency management report on a Dec. 15th wind and ice storm that created billions of dollars in damage and killed at least 15 people. Seattle officials said that its 800 MHz trunked radio system handled 148,503 push-to-talks the day of the storm, compared to a normal day of 60,000 to 80,000 transmissinos. The system experienced 464 “busy” signals that same day. About 307,000 locations lost telephone service because of the winds and ice build-up on lines, and there were “significant disruptions” in cellular service. There were 1.6 million people without television service, cutting a major source of information, and the region’s 911 system was swamped with calls–about 8% of King County 911 callers received a busy signal during the first 18 hours. Download (pdf) Seattle’s report here, or a final draft of the state’s report (12.4 Mb) here.