[InHam] Story: Amateur Radio Operators Provide Vital CommunicationsLinks Between Red Cross Shelters During Hurricane Earl

[Dean, Gregory A SSG RET]

Thought you might like to see what Red Cross is saying about Amateur Radio.
Greg Dean
n9nwo at arrl.net


Story: Amateur Radio Operators Provide Vital Communications Links
<blockedhttp://newsroom.redcross.org/2010/09/07/story-amateur-radio-operator
s-provide-vital-communications-links-between-red-cross-shelters-during-hurri
cane-earl/> Between Red Cross Shelters During Hurricane Earl


This post is written by American Red Cross disaster volunteer Allen
Crabtree.

Friday, September 3. 2010 - HYANNIS, MA - "K1PBO, this is W2BTA with the
shelter status report from the Nantucket shelter." 

Amateur Radio Technician Wini Lord Meservey was on duty at the
communications room crowded with radios and computers in the basement of the
American Red Cross Cape Cod Chapter in Hyannis, MA. She returned the radio
call from the amateur radio operator located at the Red Cross shelters on
Nantucket Island, one of many regional shelters opened in response to
Hurricane Earl.

"W2BTA, this is K1PBO. I copy you," Meservey replied. "Go ahead with your
shelter report."

One by one, each of the stations at the Red Cross shelters checked in with
the count of residents and tourists who had sought shelter from Hurricane
Earl. This information, along with current weather and reports of flooding,
was gathered and then passed along to the Red Cross as well as the Emergency
Operations Center and the nearby military base. 

"Amateur radio provides communications to support the disaster relief
efforts of the American Red Cross," said Frank O'Laughlin (WQ1O). "When all
other forms of communications go out, we are still on the air to keep vital
emergency links open. This is particularly important here at the Cape. We
are vulnerable here on our peninsula and on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard
to storms and power outages."

O'Laughlin is the Director of the local Amateur Radio Emergency Service
(ARES - pronounced A-Rees) and is a veteran ham radio operator and trained
Red Cross volunteer with twenty years' experience. ARES is a program of the
Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) that provides point to point
communications between shelters, assists in recovery efforts, provides
weather reports in weather disasters and sends messages where normal
communications have failed or are overloaded. 

"The ARRL operates under a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Red
Cross," said Keith Robertory, Manager for Disaster Technology at the
American Red Cross. "The hams are all volunteers and many of them are also
trained Red Cross volunteers. They are our 'force on the ground' that
respond when there is a disaster anywhere in the country."

ARES has been supporting Red Cross disaster relief operations for a very
long time and will celebrate its 75th anniversary this month. "We have been
working with the Red Cross long before there were cell phones," said Alan
Pitts of the ARRL. "When the Internet, the cell phones and the electricity
go out, they call on us, the hams, to get the job done."

Effective disaster relief operations rely on a number of different skills
and trained volunteers, and the dedicated ham radio operators of ARES play
an invaluable key role in Red Cross emergency service delivery around the
country, wherever disasters occur. Frank O'Laughlin and his crew of 35
committed amateur radio operators on Cape Cod expertly filled that role
during Hurricane Earl, and when the next disaster strikes they are trained
and ready to respond whenever called upon.

 
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e-vital-communications-links-between-red-cross-shelters-during-hurricane-ear
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