[SFDXA] Fwd: [pr:14242] Quick Harvey Update from Harris County

[Mark Horowitz]

As PIO for the SFDXA , I wanted to pass this on

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Mike (KA5CVH) Urich" <mike at ka5cvh.com<mailto:mike at ka5cvh.com>>
Date: August 30, 2017 at 9:26:37 AM EDT
To: A ARRL PR <pr at reflector.arrl.org<mailto:pr at reflector.arrl.org>>
Subject: [pr:14242] Quick Harvey Update from Harris County

Again my apologies for not behaving more professionally the other day
with my response to Walt.  Trust me I learned a valuable lesson and am
still embarrassed over my behaviour.  Those who understood and sent me
personal notes thank you they were valuable.

I will be out of pocket for a few days as my son who lives about four
hours from here is having surgery tomorrow and "momma bear" is
demanding that "papa bear" get her there.

While the rains have stopped for the most part and we did see the sun
yesterday evening we are far from being out of the woods.  Now that
the immediate danger from the storm has subsided we are still
suffering from the extensive amount of flooding as a result of the
training of the storm.  They are saying that we received anywhere from
nine to ten TRILLION gallons of rain, enough water to cover the entire
country with .17" of water.

The storm did move back into the gulf restrengthened and moved back in
to the east of us into the golden triangle region around Beaumont TX
and Lake Charles LA areas.  In my mind we have three clear distinct
disaster areas.  First the immediate impact zone of Rockport/Fulton,
the rain training even in Houston/Harris County and then the
subsequent second strike on the TX/LA border.  All three regions with
unique circumstances.

In the greater Houston area the flooding has affected many hams who
either have water in their homes or can not even get in or out of
their homes due to flooding around them.  That is what happened
Saturday night at Transtar (EOC) that our reliefs could not get in and
my EC, George Fletcher, AD5CQ and myself could not get out.  George is
on of those who has water in their home.  I was able to get back to my
home Monday night and we finally forced George to make every attempt
to get to his home yesterday and got him home.  His children are grown
and away from home and his wife was left to deal with there home by
herself as no one cold get in or out of their subdivision. until
yesterday.   I have not talked to our DEC in a couple of days as
others were handing but his home too is in the effected flooding area.

I have recieved many thanks for the interview.  Mike was a tremendous
host whom Walt should be proud to have on his staff.  I've received
numerous positive compliments, to you ... thanks.  I was running on
nothing but pure adrenaline and coffee. Because of the previous day's
melt down I was scared to death.  I finally got a good nights sleep in
my own bed last night and feel much  better.  Amazing how that works.

The greater Houston area must now enter the next phase of this storm,
the recovery.   We've received several offers of communications
support which I"m sure will be greatly needed.  There are currently
about 100 shelters open with two mega shelters.  They are at the
George R Brown convention center with about 9000 displaced residents
there and last night a second mega shelter was opened in Reliant Park
capable of accepting 10,000 people.

Rough ballpark (unconfirmed by me) numbers are that there may be as
many as 500,000 residents that have been forced from their homes by
this event.  That's about one tenth of our general MSA population.  I
can only presume many of them will be able to get back into their
homes in short order but many won't.   These "homes" range from
section VIII apartments to homes in the half to one million dollar
range.

I made the comment at the EOC yesterday that if your subdivision or
street has anything to do with lake, river, stream or any other
reference to water in its name ... you were probably affected.

I want to pass along some other information on contacting us.  Like I
said I will be out of pocket until Saturday.

Harris County ARES http://www.harriscountyares.org/ there is a lot of
contact information there including our entire ARES structure on each
of the unit pages.

Sheltering operations at the present time are being handled by our
DEC, Jeff Walter, KE5FGA, contact info on web-site.

We have landlocked individuals monitoring HF outside of Transtar from
their homes on 7285 & 7290 day 3873 night.

One last brag ... I need to get these onto the ARES site but I am so
proud of my counties EOC.  I have some pictures on my web-site of both
the county and my cities EOC's.

http://ka5cvh.com/p/radio_station_n5trs/  The EOC can support up to
~90 partnering agencies.  Our com room has five operating positions
two dedicated V/UHF, a third with winlink a fourth for HF  and a fifth
for Red Cross / Coast Guard (VHF & HF).
http://ka5cvh.com/p/radio_station_wx5lp/ We've remodeled the radio
room and made room for a three position CERT phone bank which was fine
by me as I had more room than I needed.


--
Mike Urich KA5CVH
http://ka5cvh.com

STX ASEC - Training
STX: (A)PIC Dist 1 & 14
PIO Harris County ARES
AuxCom / ComL

We may be Volunteers,
But we're professional.
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