On August 26, a front in the Caribbean developed into a tropical depression, which organized further and ultimately became Tropical Storm Ida. Amid favorable conditions, Ida intensified into a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph and made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana on August 29, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Each day leading up to landfall, L3Harris Technologies' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) Program's Contingency Disaster Recovery (CDR) team reviewed the storm's projected path and its increasing strength. They prepped for a potential U.S. landfall in the gulf coast, monitoring what service sites for the FAA could be in the path of the storm. The FAA reached out to L3Harris' FTI District Service Manager and advised they would be going to Readiness Level Charlie across the gulf states from Beaumont, Texas to Mobile, Alabama. This meant they would initiate preparatory actions, such as deploying emergency repair crews, in advance of the potential natural disaster.
The FTI CDR team closely communicated with the FAA's National Airspace System (NAS) Security and Enterprise Operations (NASEO) team and our telecommunication partners to provide situational awareness updates, emphasize the importance of swift facility restoration in the event the storm caused damage, and to identify what critical services would need priority restoration. The FAA requested L3Harris deploy and forward stage mobile satellite assets to Atlanta, Georgia and Shreveport, Louisiana in preparation for service recovery efforts. The FTI CDR team also ensured any L3Harris employees in the path of the storm were prepared and safe.
Based on the projected track, the FTI CDR team identified 81 FAA sites and 342 services likely to be impacted. As the storm made landfall, the FTI Primary Network Operations Control Center (PNOCC) in Melbourne, Florida began to identify storm-related service outages as the telecommunications infrastructure became inundated. Receiving a request for assistance from the FAA NASEO team, FTI Operations responded immediately and the FTI Satellite Communications (FTI-SAT) engineering team was sent to the impacted areas. The first FTI-SAT team dispatched to Shreveport, Louisiana where they met with the FAA Disaster team to assess facility service outages and discuss priority service restorations.
Two days after landfall, initial damage assessments identified over 250 services in Louisiana impacted by Hurricane Ida. Many FAA sites had sustained power loss and telecommunication infrastructure damage, with some sites having major damage and no expectation for a rapid recovery.
To restore vital services for the NAS, L3Harris' FTI-SAT engineers quickly responded and coordinated with the satellite network provider, SES, and the ground receiving partner, UltiSat to assess the system availability and deploy the emergency FTI-SAT assets. The FAA NASEO team identified additional critical service restoration areas and requested a second satellite communications system to support Remote Transmitter/Receiver (RTR) services in Galliano, Louisiana. The team dispatched and restored services to RTR services in Houston and Galliano using temporary and long-term satellite communications solutions to maintain operations while damage to facilities could be addressed.
In the face of these types of disasters, it's critical that L3Harris works quickly to ensure the continuity of FTI Services to ensure the safety and security of our skies, explained Hunt Fitch, FTI-SAT Engineer. Our response is more than just helping the FAA customer; it's helping impacted communities. As soon as we can reestablish communications, air traffic can resume which allows more relief into these areas. Our work permits critical disaster relief to begin in a timely manner.
Of the more than 200 services impacted by Hurricane Ida, only a small percentage remain out of service because of long term power or infrastructure issues. All critical communications were quickly restored and the air traffic in the region resumed normal operations within a week. I would like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to the team for the nothing short of incredible efforts they put forth to restore NAS services in the wake of Hurricane Ida, said David Fischer, FAA National Telecommunications Operations Manager. Repeatedly, in times of communication crisis, the L3Harris FTI team has risen to the occasion and excelled.
The tireless dedication of the FTI-SAT team and the numerous hours of the FTI Operations and Management team ensured that our customers could return to normal operations' in the face of disaster. These tremendous efforts paralleled the continuous 24/7 operations of the FTI team as they support over 4000 FAA sites across the country to maintain safe and secure skies.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
On August 26, a front in the Caribbean developed into a tropical depression, which organized further and ultimately became Tropical Storm Ida. Amid favorable conditions, Ida intensified into a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph and made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana on August 29, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. 
