A fire at the National Weather Service (NWS) transmitter in Hitchcock has taken Galveston’s NOAA emergency weather radio off the air. Officials are working to restore service as soon as possible and are urging residents to seek weather updates online or by phone.
People in Galveston were not able to hear emergency weather reports. Tuesday afternoon, the radio frequency for the National Weather Service (NWS) for the area suddenly stopped working. Even the local NWS staff were confused at first about the loss, which was later linked to a fire at the NOAA transmitter in Hitchcock.
At 1:49 p.m., the NWS Houston X account asked people in the area if they could hear the 162.550 MHz frequency of NOAA Weather Radio. However, only static was recorded. The system has gone down before; a similar problem happened during the snowstorm in January.
Andy McNeel, who is in charge of the NWS's observation program, stated that the fire was what caused the blackout. A different transmitter in Tomball serves the northern areas, while the Hitchcock transmitter serves the Galveston area. McNeel told the people that work was already being done to get service back up and running.
"We'll try to get it back up and running as soon as we can," McNeel said. For now, people in Dickinson can get the same NOAA weather reports by calling the office and pressing "1" or going to weather.gov/hgx.
The NOAA frequency in Galveston is one of seven VHF public-service bands that are used for hurricane alerts, severe weather alerts, and emergency reports. You can get special weather radios at hardware shops for $25 to $70. They are an important part of being ready for a hurricane.
No one knows for sure what caused the fire. Officials at Hitchcock didn't know about any fires in the area, and they tried to get in touch with the local fire department but couldn't. NWS staff will look into the damage Wednesday morning, but there is no time frame yet for getting the show back online.
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