Ham radio operators volunteering with the ARRL® Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®) have successfully completed operations for Hurricane Francine, now a tropical storm. “We had a huge positive showing of ARES team members checking in and doing the ‘thing.’ I sincerely appreciate everyone leaning into this activation,” said Robert Hayes, KC5IMN, Section Emergency Coordinator of the ARRL Mississippi Section.

The National Hurricane Center reported at 4:00 AM on Thursday, September 12, 2024, that Hurricane Francine made landfall early Wednesday evening in Louisiana, southwest of New Orleans, as a Category 2 hurricane, before weakening to Category 1. It has now been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Currently the storm is moving inland over southeastern Louisiana with heavy rainfall spreading across Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. Early Thursday morning, the storm was 20 miles northwest of New Orleans with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour (MPH) and moving northeast toward Mississippi at 14 MPH.

At least 419,942 people were without power early Thursday morning. PowerOutage.us reported 392,440 people without power in Louisiana and 27,502 in Mississippi.

A turn toward the north-northeast and north is expected during the next day or so, with some decrease in forward speed. On the forecast track, the center of Francine will move over central and northern portions of Mississippi through early Friday.

The Hurricane Watch Net has secured operations but remains at HWN Alert Level 2 monitoring mode. During their 14-hour activation, Net Manager Bobby Graves said they collected and forwarded over 40 surface reports from southeastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the National Hurricane Center by way of WX4NHC. A copy of these reports is available upon request. Also, they had direct contact, on many occasions, with the Louisiana State EOC (WB5LHS) in Baton Rouge on 14.325 MHz. The VoIP Hurricane Net secured formal net operations on Wednesday, 9/11/24, at 1100 PM EDT/1000 PM CDT. A total of 58 reports were submitted to WX4NHC, the amateur radio station at the National Hurricane Center, some of which were used in NHC Advisories and Tropical Cyclone Updates. Reports ranged from wind damage to buildings, tree and wire damage reports, coastal storm surge flooding, wind measurement, rain gauge and rain-related street flooding reports. 

A complete listing of the reports can be seen in the VoIP Hurricane Net Report Viewer at the following link: 

https://www.voipwx.net/qilan/nhcwx/list_VOIP_records1?auth=OK

ARRL will monitor the path of Francine and issue updates as warranted.