Narrative:

With the tropical system bands arriving in all sectors the weather complexity increased dramatically within all sectors of the specialty. Our personnel count was down to only [a few] certified professional controllers (cpc) at the start of the shift for our night count. I overheard one of the supervisors tell the relieving supervisor that we took two sick hits but the weather wasn't going to be a factor because it's going to shut down our airspace. This proved completely false. With our staffing levels low they decided to combine all low sectors into a mid-shift style configuration. Now you're working 4 sectors with 4 different frequencies with 6 different sites to try and manage. At no normal time do we ever combine all the sectors into this configuration unless we are preparing for the mid [shift.] this was my first session to work it today but I watched another previous controller struggle for almost two hours on position in the same manner. At no time could you provide a good safe service to the flying public. It was utter chaos with the supervisor sitting at the desk for [several] hours letting the specialty go down the tubes. Have an engaged supervisor in the area at all times; especially with weather. To provide some relief in surrounding approaches for departures; routing; etc. Just sitting there doing nothing for hours is unacceptable. Utilize overtime (ot) with a low count is unacceptable in the conditions we were experiencing.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Center Controller reported a staffing problem and weather related issues that made the sectors overloaded with traffic.

Narrative: With the tropical system bands arriving in all sectors the weather complexity increased dramatically within all sectors of the specialty. Our personnel count was down to only [a few] Certified Professional Controllers (CPC) at the start of the shift for our night count. I overheard one of the supervisors tell the relieving supervisor that we took two sick hits but the weather wasn't going to be a factor because it's going to shut down our airspace. This proved completely false. With our staffing levels low they decided to combine all low sectors into a mid-shift style configuration. Now you're working 4 sectors with 4 different frequencies with 6 different sites to try and manage. At no normal time do we ever combine all the sectors into this configuration unless we are preparing for the mid [shift.] This was my first session to work it today but I watched another previous controller struggle for almost two hours on position in the same manner. At no time could you provide a good safe service to the flying public. It was utter chaos with the supervisor sitting at the desk for [several] hours letting the specialty go down the tubes. Have an engaged supervisor in the area at all times; especially with weather. To provide some relief in surrounding approaches for departures; routing; etc. Just sitting there doing nothing for hours is unacceptable. Utilize Overtime (OT) with a low count is unacceptable in the conditions we were experiencing.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.