[KL7AA] Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help

Fri Sep 16 18:48:12 EDT 2005

Isn't it amazing how very little (or more like nothing) has been said in the
national press about ham radio provided communcations down in the gulf?

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  KL7AP bcmall at escapees.com
Sent: Friday, 16, September, 2005 21:06
Subject: ham radio article

Click here to read this story online:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0915/p12s02-stss.html

Headline:  Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help
Byline:  Barbara W. Carlson Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 09/15/2005

(NEWINGTON, CONN.)Richard Webb, an amateur radio operator, was asleep on his
air mattress  at University Hospital in New Orleans during the aftermath of
hurricane  Katrina when he was awakened at 5 a.m. by a hospital
administrator.

As Mr. Webb tells it, "He told me we had a lady who was in labor, who
had swum five blocks in that dirty, nasty water to the hospital because
she saw lights there - people with flashlights moving around." Medical
personnel said the baby needed to be delivered by caesarean section.
But the hospital had limited power, no running water, no way to
sterilize instruments, no way to perform such surgery. "We figured we
had two hours to get her medevacked out of there" before the lives of
mother and child would be in danger. "So I got on the radio and was
talking to a fellow who was with the Coast Guard auxiliary in
Cleveland, Ohio. I was working with him to arrange a medevac."
Choppers did arrive in time, Webb says. The woman and another patient
in need were evacuated successfully. Because the hospital had no
landing pad, the two had to be lifted out in baskets lowered from the
helicopters.

Webb, who lived in nearby Slidell, La., had been summoned to his
hurricane post by the hospital's head of emergency management. He's one
of about 750 amateur radio operators, or "hams," who have been in and
out of the five hurricane states since day one: Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, and parts of northern Florida and Texas, where evacuees are
taking shelter. At least a thousand other hams throughout the nation
have been involved in some way, relaying messages or assigning hams to
various locations. They're all volunteers, all unpaid, and they do what
they do because they want to. They train for disaster work; their FCC
radio licenses mandate public service.

In typical disaster conditions, agencies like the Red Cross, Salvation
Army, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and local
government bodies call on a state ham leader for volunteers when usual
channels of communication are down or jammed.

Katrina was different: It was far more vast. For the first time, the
nonprofit American Radio Relay League (ARRL) set up a website and
database to facilitate assigning hams.

Pamela Taylor, who works as an events manager in Hampton Beach, N.H.,
got a call from FEMA and headed south on Sept. 9. She was deployed to a
shelter in Ocean Springs, Miss., near Gulfport, before moving to New
Orleans. The shelter was a church, well-supplied and maintained, with
an abundance of volunteers. Her job was to radio for special needs,
anything from a doctor to paper plates. Nights sometimes brought an
emergency or two when a resident had to be removed, usually for alcohol
or drug problems.

Hams worked with the National Weather Service before and during the
hurricane. They still are receiving and transmitting messages in
shelters and other locations, alerting emergency agencies that a
community needs water, that an elderly woman needs an ambulance, or
that sanitary conditions are in crisis.

An estimated 600,000 FCC-licensed amateur radio operators live in the
United States; about 162,000 are members of the ARRL, which was founded
in 1904 and is located here in Newington, Conn. Nearby Hartford is
where Hiram Percy Maxim, the father of amateur radio, experimented at
sending messages across the city and then relaying them across the
country. Long before e-mail, there was amateur radio. It evolved over
the last century so that today, ham operators communicate with one
another around the world. Allen Pitts, for example, the ARRL's
media-relations manager, says he has spoken to fellow hams in 213
foreign countries or "political entities."

That's the hobby part of hamdom. The serious and vital part is seen in
the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). Trained ham operators are
ready with their "go kits" of equipment, batteries, and energy bars.
ARRL coordinates the work of the emergency operators. Hams were at
ground zero in New York within hours, they were in Florida for the
multiple hurricanes last year, and they handled communications in the
Northeast blackout of 2003.

Hams are volunteers. When they set sail for disasters, they pay their
own way. Sometimes employers give them a paid leave or reimburse
expenses. Hams' sacrifices are real, but the rewards are often
intangible.

Mark Conklin of Tulsa got time off as a sales manager for an appliance
company to relay messages. At first he handled communications between
the state department of emergency management and the highway patrol.
Next he was assigned to the 1,200 evacuees transplanted to an Oklahoma
National Guard camp. At the camp, he talked to an elderly woman who was
crying because she was happy - "communications" had been able to get a
pair of glasses for her. "For the first time in a week," she said, "I
can see."