WEATHER: update Puerto Rico/South Florida

Sun Sep 27 05:36:08 UTC 1998

300 dead so far (200 Dominican Republic, 87 Haiti, others spread out over
several different islands)

Once again, my information is limited to where DRA has customers.  So
I don't know about other areas.

South Florida:

Light to moderate damage.  Power outage in the keys and spot outages in
south Florida.  Most telephone and Internet service continued to function.

Puerto Rico:

Latest word I have from people on the island, is they are still without
telephone, electricity or water.  At least 50% of the telephone poles on
the island have been knocked down.  I don't have word specifically about
the satellite teleport in Puerto Rico.  Currently emergency officials are
working on restoring utility service to these facilities, in this order

	1. Emergency services, hospitals, designated shelters
	2. Water and sewerage plants
	3. Telephone and other communication services

Estimates are it will be Monday before priority services have been
restored.  Major urban areas by the end of next week (Oct 2).

Other News:

Does anyone have any more information about Worldcom's outage last
night in Mississippi?  The only information we received was it
involved hazardous materials.

BTW, last Friday I attended a briefing at the Department of Commerce
about the process the US Government is embarking on to work on a
"private-public" partnership with the "Information and Communications"
sector as part of their Critical Infrastructure Assurance Program.
I didn't recognize anyone from a "post cold war" company in attendence.
Essentially no Internet backbone representation, with maybe the possible
exception of AT&T.  Not that anyone missed anything.  I wonder what
the press thought of the briefing.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation