[K3PZN-List] harricane

[Andy Leeds]

Well I just got my dsl back, still no phone service (kinda ironic since 
the dsl comes over the phone lines), power came on an hour ago. We 
missed the worst of the storm here in Brevard Co. but still a lot of damage.

On Thursday afternoon the red cross came into the radio room and told us 
that they were abandoning the red cross building due to the strength of 
the storm. We relocated equipment to Holmes Regional Medical Center down 
the street and set up shop there, the Red Cross went to the county 
bunker in Rockledge. This created an interesting problem - more than 1/2 
the county shelters are in the south, usualy the traffic between Red 
Cross and those shelters is handled localy on the south net, now we had 
to send it up to the command net to get it delivered. This created a 
workload and slowed things down since all the traffic had an extra hop 
in it. It also created a problem with 2 2m rigs in close proximity on 
temporary antennas - one would desence the other. We used a psudo-arrl 
format, mainly a requirement that all messages to EOC have a signature, 
we didn't bother with checks and most of the header. We had numbering 
issues, and it would have worked better if the ncs had just numbered all 
the messages rather than each shelter opeator doing their own, and then 
resetting the counter each time ops changed. Packet or other digital 
means to transfer the messages up to EOC would have also helped but I 
din't have the antennas for that in the temporary setup at the 
hospital.  The speed of the storm was such that we were in lockdown for 
24+ hours and not able to shift operators. I got caught in the hostpital 
with no second op when things got bad and ended up as NCS and the 
hospital operator for about 34 hours strait. The operators in some of 
the shelters faired better as there were from 2-6 of them and they could 
work shifts. All told it went fairly well for the scope of the disaster 
in question.

Several of the repeaters had elements blown off the antenna and our main 
machine was taking continued damage from debris still swinging arouns 
the tower.  The 146.610 repeater antenna disintegrated while one of our 
ops watched it across the hospital roof. The other 2m antenna up there 
broke free from its mount and flew over the side of the building, its 
still hanging there upside down by the coax (somebody soldered that 
pl259 correctly). We set up a X510 (24' tall) antenna in the 8th floor 
stairwell to get the repeater back on the air. Tomorrow we put it on the 
roof unless it keeps raining.

The 40' tower at the red cross came down, it and the A4 are a total 
loss. The 80' tower on the other side of the building stayed up, but the 
big mosley beam lost some elements. The 2m vertical on top is gone and 
the ringo in the middle is about 2' tall now. My tower did fine - I took 
the A3 off on Thursday and the 2m verticle and 6m beam appear undamaged. 
As soon as I can I'll send post some pictures.

73,
N3MCB Andy