Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 11
Time Pressure; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Weather; Procedure; Company Policy; Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; Staffing
I'll start off by saying that the South Area had 6 Controllers and 1 D side trainee; but no Supervisor.  The East Area had 6 Controllers and 1 Supervisor.  The South Area was forced to operate while the Supervisor position was combined with the Operations Manager in Charge.  While working 68; Sealord was active above my stratum for everything but W136A/B.  There was a few scattered areas of precipitation around SAV; and a line west of SAV that forced the traffic between sectors 66/50 to deviate into my sector.  Sector 47/48 was combined and very busy. ZDC did what ZDC does best; as they slammed the door on sector 47/48.  Scrambling; the East Area begins rerouting every aircraft into ZTL.  ZTL did what ZTL does best; as they then slammed the door on the East Area as well.  This caused us all to put everyone into no notice holding.  Like dominoes falling south; everyone stopped taking hand offs for aircraft headed towards ZDC and put everyone into holding.From here; chaos ensued.  Information was limited; we had no Supervisor in the area to talk to Traffic Management Unit or the other areas to figure out what we needed to do.  I basically had one hole around SAV everyone was flying through; and Sealord had the rest of my airspace.  Regardless; I had to begin no notice holding.  I didn't know how long this would be; so I made a plan to hold aircraft at odd altitudes in two different locations (SAV and GIPPL).  My plan was to hold south at both points; so I could successfully hold a lot of aircraft if I needed to. I began by first issuing holding instructions to Aircraft X to hold south at a point just east of SAV at 33;000 feet.  The next aircraft I was given was Aircraft Y at 33;000 feet.  I issued holding instructions to him to hold south at the GIPPL intersection at 33;000 feet.Between every transmission of mine; I was trying to get the attention of the Supervisor in the East Area.  If you listen to the tapes; you will hear me say 'say again' very often.  This is because it was impossible to try and get help; while also keeping up with their check ins/requests.  He was the only one around that wasn't plugged in and trying to create order from the chaos.  He of course was very busy (and doing well at taking care of his own area) so it was hard to steal him away to try and figure out what was going on. At some point (I had too much going on to see the exact time) conflict alert initiated between the Aircraft X and Aircraft Y.  I expected the Aircraft Y to be south of GIPPL; thus no factor for the Aircraft X when I gave the holding instructions.  The Aircraft Y must have plugged in north instead of south; because he was head on with the Aircraft X.  I issued traffic alerts and turns; while climbing the Aircraft X to FL340. There was a loss [of separation].I don't know at this point if I issued the holding instructions incorrectly or if I had missed a bad read back.  This could have been my mistake or it could have been a pilot deviation.  Either way; there was too much chaos to catch any unexpected pilot actions.  ZDC giving no notice to stop all hand offs without any kind of heads up is ridiculous and dangerous.  It would be a completely different story if they had put us on alert and given us routes to issue if it happens.  This also would have given ZTL a heads up and then we could have all worked together on a safe and expeditious plan. There should have been a staffing trigger tonight.  Any time that is brought up; everyone freaks out and refuses to ever use the word 'staffing'.  This happens constantly.  The South and East areas having 6 Controllers a piece is not ok.  Maybe this is conversation better spent as a hotline call?  What is so wrong with slowing traffic due to low staffing?  It is no different than getting slower service at a restaurant because they are low on servers.  It's semantics; and semantics should never interfere with safety. That is our number one job after all. Tonight was dangerous and this kind of practice needs to stop.  It won't though; so I'm going to stop wasting any more time.  Staffing is terrible; we constantly get stretched too thin; we don't ever really have a proactive plan; we get very little support from Command Center; and sometimes that swiss cheese thing the FAA likes to tell us about comes true and then there's a loss.
ZJX Center Controller reported a loss of separation between two aircraft entering holding patterns. Controllers in the area were working combined sectors with no supervisor when adjacent facilities closed their airspace causing the reporter's area to have to hold aircraft unexpectedly.