Narrative:

A massive thunderstorm system of historic proportions was moving across the entire southeast united states. Upon reporting for duty; I learned that our staffing for the night shift was at a critically low level even with people on overtime. It was soon apparent that no proactive measures had been put in place to handle the inevitable traffic volume and flight deviations we would soon experience. No flow control restrictions; miles-in-trail; or re-routes had been established. As the night continued and the weather moved across the panhandle and into central and northeast florida; the controllers staffing jacksonville center were forced to route hundreds of aircraft toward and through the extreme weather; formulating plans using only sector-to-sector coordination. At no time did tmu implement any type of plan to handle the unknown thousands of aircraft affected by this storm. On several occasions; members of tmu came into the operational area to see how the aircraft were deviating around and through the weather. They continuously tried to convince us that we could 'make it work' and that we didn't need any flow restrictions; miles-in-trail; or mandatory re-routes. We were essentially left to fend for ourselves and scramble to develop plans on-the-fly. These matters were only compounded by critically low staffing. On 2 occasions I was forced to work 2 sectors combined with no d-side because of low staffing. This sector configuration is highly unusual and particularly complex. I have never worked the airspace in this configuration before; and I have only seen it done once before. Coordination was impossible. Twice I requested a d-side and was told that there were no available controllers to assist me. I handled unknown hundreds of deviating aircraft; and had an unknown number of airspace violations both with ZJX and ZMA; and had unknown number of operational deviations from LOA's/SOP's. I had numerous occasions when conflict alert saved an error and/or midair collision. There were numerous times when I was unable to retain control of the 2 frequencies due to traffic volume; deviation requests and blocked transmissions. This was an 'every man for himself' type saturation. The members of tmu did absolutely nothing to prevent this situation from developing and only made things worse by trying to coax us into forcing more airplanes into the extreme weather. I recommend a full investigation into the staffing and overtime policies of ZJX and an investigation into the policies and practices of ZJX tmu; and their constant refusal to do their jobs.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZJX Controller provided a perspective of the alleged facility shortfalls with regard to staffing; workload and TMU performance during a significant weather impacted period.

Narrative: A massive thunderstorm system of historic proportions was moving across the entire Southeast United States. Upon reporting for duty; I learned that our staffing for the night shift was at a critically low level even with people on overtime. It was soon apparent that no proactive measures had been put in place to handle the inevitable traffic volume and flight deviations we would soon experience. No flow control restrictions; miles-in-trail; or re-routes had been established. As the night continued and the weather moved across the panhandle and into Central and Northeast Florida; the controllers staffing Jacksonville Center were forced to route hundreds of aircraft toward and through the extreme weather; formulating plans using only sector-to-sector coordination. At no time did TMU implement any type of plan to handle the unknown thousands of aircraft affected by this storm. On several occasions; members of TMU came into the operational area to see how the aircraft were deviating around and through the weather. They continuously tried to convince us that we could 'make it work' and that we didn't need any flow restrictions; miles-in-trail; or mandatory re-routes. We were essentially left to fend for ourselves and scramble to develop plans on-the-fly. These matters were only compounded by critically low staffing. On 2 occasions I was forced to work 2 sectors combined with no d-side because of low staffing. This sector configuration is highly unusual and particularly complex. I have never worked the airspace in this configuration before; and I have only seen it done once before. Coordination was impossible. Twice I requested a D-Side and was told that there were no available controllers to assist me. I handled unknown hundreds of deviating aircraft; and had an unknown number of airspace violations both with ZJX and ZMA; and had unknown number of operational deviations from LOA's/SOP's. I had numerous occasions when Conflict Alert saved an error and/or midair collision. There were numerous times when I was unable to retain control of the 2 frequencies due to traffic volume; deviation requests and blocked transmissions. This was an 'every man for himself' type saturation. The members of TMU did absolutely nothing to prevent this situation from developing and only made things worse by trying to coax us into forcing more airplanes into the extreme weather. I recommend a full investigation into the staffing and overtime policies of ZJX and an investigation into the policies and practices of ZJX TMU; and their constant refusal to do their jobs.

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.