[ARRL-OK] Hams spot storm shelters

[Lloyd Colston]

STORM SHELTERS PROJECT PAYS DIVIDENDS FOR CLUB
 
An Oklahoma ham radio club's initiative has paid off by helping the
community and enhancing public recognition for Amateur Radio. Chuck
Kanach, KC5EZS, who's vice president of the Choctaw Amateur Radio Club
<http://k5car.tripod.com/carc>, says his club proposed last year to
locate
the precise position of storm shelters in the tornado-prone community to
enable them to be found later--after a storm. CARC, an ARRL-affiliated
club, got the okay this summer.
 
Members used their own GPS units and kept in touch via ham radio and
cellphone as they used an initial list of 137 addresses from the city to
track down, pinpoint and inventory the exact location of each storm
cellar. Before they finished, the list had grown by another two dozen.
 
"We worked in teams of two and were able to locate 154 of these shelters
within a six-week period," said Kanach, who headed up the project
<http://k5car.tripod.com/carc/id1.html>. When the club finally turned
over
its list, Fire Chief Loren Bumgarner handed the club another dozen to
locate.
 
"We have also been asked to locate storm shelters for neighboring cities,
Kanach said. "It looks like we will be staying busy for a while."
 
The success of the project--and ham radio's contribution in the aftermath
of last May's tornadoes in Oklahoma--has encouraged municipal officials
to
take ham radio more seriously as an emergency resource, Kanach said.
 
"I am now on first-name basis with our city's emergency coordinator,"
Kanach said. "He knows that we have people in our club concerned about
our
city and our people. He also knows the type of services we could
provide."
 
Kanach believes part of the reason for the project's success--which got
local media coverage--was not waiting for the city to ask but taking the
initiative to propose the project first. "The City of Choctaw and
everyone
we came in contact with now knows about the Choctaw Amateur Radio Club,"
he said.

Lloyd Colston             Mayes County Emergency Management
Pryor, OK USA           http://www.geocities.com/mccem
        Homeland Security begins at HOME.

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