The National Hurricane Center upgraded the slow-moving tropical storm Arthur as a Category 1 hurricane today.
This morning, authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for North Carolina’s Hatteras Island and a voluntary evacuation order for Ocracoke Island, both on the state’s Outer Banks. The National Weather Service expects Arthur to strengthen to a Category 2 when it moves near Cape Hatteras at about dawn on Friday, with 3 to 5 inches of rain and sustained winds of up to 90 mph.
As authorities watch Arthur move up the East Coast, Sprint has mobilized its Network Disaster Recovery unit and Emergency Response Team; just as radio stations do, Sprint is prestaging critical assets before Arthur makes landfall, including portable generators and satellite cell trucks.
As part of its storm prep, Sprint is reminding customers the carrier offers the NextRadio interactive FM application on certain smartphone models. NextRadio “receives FM radio broadcasts in a user’s local area through a built-in FM tuner inside the smartphone.”
Sprint says: “By downloading the NextRadio app, Sprint, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA customers can use their Android smartphone to receive news and information from local broadcast affiliates during times of emergency. FM radio can be a lifeline to citizens when other communication networks suffer disaster- related outages, such as hurricanes.”