FORMER FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY INDICTED 6A
ADVOCATE THE
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
|
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
F r i d ay, S e p t e m b e r 26, 2025
$2.00X
911 service down for hours Severed fiber-optic lines blamed for disruptions across the state
STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
AI key to LSU’s new flood prediction model
Technique produces faster, accurate results, scientists say BY JOSIE ABUGOV Staff writer
When a storm is barreling in from the Gulf, which neighborhoods would be most likely to flood and at what depths? And can that be predicted quickly with affordable technology? A team of LSU scientists is using artificial intelligence to do just that — and so far having success. It is developing a new flood prediction technique that runs exponentially faster than previous models while yielding highly
accurate results. The method documents both storm surge and inland flooding from rainfall. Z. George Xue, a professor in the department of oceanography and coastal science and the Center for Computation and Technology, said the new method could assist disaster managers during storms and help analyze longer-term risk patterns. The results of six years of research were published in July in the journal Natural Hazards. The team of professors, postdoctoral students and
graduate students received federal support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Society, the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA for the project. The new system offers “a promising strategy to overcome the trade-off between speed and accuracy in flood predictions,” the paper states, by combining two types of methods: a slower but more accurate model, and a faster AI model with lower accuracy.
ä See FLOOD, page 5A
BY QUINN COFFMAN and MICHELLE HUNTER
Staff writers
Most of Louisiana lost the ability to call 911, the nation’s universal emergency response number, for several hours Thursday after 911 fiber-optic lines were cut in Mississippi. Law enforcement agencies across Louisiana began reporting 911 outages in the early afternoon and offering other numbers for people needing police, ambulances or the fire department to call. The outage was caused by the cutting of a 911 fiber line or multiple lines somewhere in Mississippi, said authorities with multiple parish communication districts and with AT&T. Residents were told service was expected to return after a few hours. “Our teams have dispatched and are working as quickly as possible to repair multiple fiber cuts, affecting 9-1-1 service for some customers in Louisiana and Mississippi,” a spokesperson for AT&T said in a statement just after 4 p.m. Thursday. “We understand how important these services are and appreciate the patience of our customers.” Service was returned for most parishes, including Orleans, Jefferson, Lafayette and East Baton Rouge, after 4 p.m.
ä See 911, page 5A
‘Twin’ storms in Atlantic throw hurricane forecasters for a loop
THE FUJIWHARA EFFECT
Although rare, when two nearby storm systems develop, typically within 900 miles of each other, they can interact and alter trajectories or even merge into one storm Atlantic Ocean
the Gulf Coast. cal cyclones move so close Fujiwhara effect a along But it’s not Humberto it- together that they begin to rotate around a that’s throwrare phenomenon self “When you get common miding forecasters
BY KASEY BUBNASH
Staff writer
There’s nothing all that special about Tropical Storm Humberto on its own. A typical storm developing in what is a historically active time of year for the Atlantic basin, Humberto seems like a cut-and-dried case. Yet since it formed east of the Leeward Islands on Wednesday afternoon, hurricane forecasters have warned that their predictions for the system could be less accurate than usual, spurring calls for vigilance from local meteorologists
WEATHER HIGH 86 LOW 63 PAGE 8B
and hurricane these two storms point, according models for a loop. that are in close to the National It’s the storm’s Service. proximity, they Weather proximity to a It’s an effect can basically tropical wave that Colorado kind of steer over the CaribState Univerbean. With just sity hurricane each other.” about 750 miles researcher Phil PHIL KLOTZBACH, between their Klotzbach said Colorado State centers, the syscan be a headUniversity hurricane ache for foretems could work together to crecasters, making researcher storm trajectoate something rarely seen on ries significantly our side of the globe: the Fu- less predictable. “When you get these jiwhara effect. A phenomenon more com- two storms that are in monly seen in the Pacific close proximity, they can Ocean, the Fujiwhara efä See STORMS, page 4A fect occurs when two tropi-
CURRENT 5-DAY FORECAST
HUMBERTO
Gulf of Mexico IMELDA
(predicted)
Caribbean Sea CENTRAL AMERICA
1 Storms could interact, launching each other onto unpredictable paths
Staff graphic by DAN SWENSON
Business ......................3B Commentary ................7B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................7D Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-6D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
2 Storms could merge, the more common outcome
SOUTH AMERICA
101ST yEAR, NO. 88