Narrative:

Dfw SID routing's into sector 83 (eastbound) were being heavily impacted by weather. Through the preceding hours heavy weather was moving south in the 83 sector and necessitated the closing of the 064R; 074R; 084R and finally the 094R. I called the tmu to request the final eastbound radial closed because controllers on both 83 and 90/71 were unable to contain any aircraft within our airspace. This request was not met with any successful resolution or compliance and the tmu representative made matters much worse. After not complying to close the radial; the tmu plan was to open the 074R. This was not acceptable to me; as the controllers I did not think aircraft could safely navigate through the weather. At the end of the phone call I was told we were moving to two routes east (074R and 094R) and was hung up on. I went down to the tmu to work this out and agreed to send out a test ship on the 074R but the request to close the 094R was again denied. By the time I made it back to the area; the entire departure stream had been moved to the 074R with no coordination from the tmu and no time to allow the test ship to fly even a portion of the route. Controllers on 83 had to verbally coordinate procedures with D10 controllers because of the lack of communication from tmu. The controllers did an outstanding job of alleviating a very hazardous situation. D-sides and hand offs were paged back to help; but the volume of traffic was too much and only continued to build after initial requests were denied. After discussing this with an area flm; I should have called D10 directly and shut-off departures without the consent of the tmu. The omic should then have been notified of the problem.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZFW Controller described a weather impacted period when the Traffic Management Unit denied a request for alternate routing resulting; the reporter claiming the resulting traffic volume complexity was unacceptable.

Narrative: DFW SID routing's into Sector 83 (eastbound) were being heavily impacted by weather. Through the preceding hours heavy weather was moving south in the 83 Sector and necessitated the closing of the 064R; 074R; 084R and finally the 094R. I called the TMU to request the final eastbound radial closed because Controllers on both 83 and 90/71 were unable to contain any aircraft within our airspace. This request was not met with any successful resolution or compliance and the TMU Representative made matters much worse. After not complying to close the radial; the TMU plan was to open the 074R. This was not acceptable to me; as the Controllers I did not think aircraft could safely navigate through the weather. At the end of the phone call I was told we were moving to two routes east (074R and 094R) and was hung up on. I went down to the TMU to work this out and agreed to send out a test ship on the 074R but the request to close the 094R was again denied. By the time I made it back to the area; the entire departure stream had been moved to the 074R with no coordination from the TMU and no time to allow the test ship to fly even a portion of the route. Controllers on 83 had to verbally coordinate procedures with D10 Controllers because of the lack of communication from TMU. The Controllers did an outstanding job of alleviating a very hazardous situation. D-Sides and Hand offs were paged back to help; but the volume of traffic was too much and only continued to build after initial requests were denied. After discussing this with an area FLM; I should have called D10 directly and shut-off departures without the consent of the TMU. The OMIC should then have been notified of the problem.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.