ARRL President Urges Orderly Amateur Radio Response to Katrina:

ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, this week called on the Amateur Radio community to exercise patience as the Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans flooding relief and recovery efforts move into high gear.

"I know many people would like to move now," Haynie said. "Please don't. I know many of you want to enter the fray, come to the coast and get involved. Please, not yet." Haynie instead advised hams eager to assist to make sure they're prepared, refresh their skills and knowledge of protocols and procedures.

The ARRL now is seeking experienced Amateur Radio emergency volunteers to help supplement communication for American Red Cross feeding and sheltering operations in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Special consideration will be given to operators who have successfully completed the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Communications course training (Level I minimum) to serve as team leaders. All interested should e-mail Katrina@arrl.org, providing name, call sign, contact information and any equipment you can take along on a field deployment for an indefinite period. Volunteers may face hardship conditions without the usual amenities and will need to provide their own transportation to the marshaling area.

Haynie says safety is of paramount importance to all ARES volunteers. "For now, the area is simply too dangerous, and no one is being allowed in," he pointed out. "Transportation and logistics, including volunteer groups coming in, must be done in an orderly manner or we may only add to the chaos and confusion." He requested that ARES members and teams work through their Section Emergency Coordinators (SECs).

President Haynie's complete remarks are on the ARRL Web site http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/09/01/1/.

Amateur Radio operators from Texas were deployed this week to New Orleans to assist in the trouble-plagued evacuation of flooding refugees from the Louisiana Superdome. Because of additional flooding, damage to the facility and other problems at the Superdome, authorities convoyed the 25,000 flood evacuees in the sports stadium to the Houston Astrodome and other locations in Texas.

Louisiana Section Emergency Coordinator Gary Stratton, K5GLS, says ham radio communication between Houston and the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, emergency operations center (EOC) September 1 was able to clarify some logistical issues involved with the refugee relocation effort.

While Amateur Radio is providing support in Louisiana for various relief organizations, Stratton said most ham radio efforts to date have gone toward assisting with emergency management and search-and-rescue operations. Stratton says he has ARES members ready to roll once authorities reopen the hardest-hit parishes that have been closed off to outsiders.

"We have people on standby from all over northern Louisiana and from the South Texas Section basically champing at the bit trying to find out when they can go," Stratton told ARRL. "It's a very tough wait." Volunteers have been or will be deployed into areas that are not cordoned off, he said.

Mississippi Section Manager Malcolm Keown, W5XX, says ARES members are active in the three hardest-hit counties--Harrison, Hancock and Jackson. Amateurs there have been using HF, VHF and UHF resources to support emergency management as well as the Red Cross, The Salvation Army and the Baptist Men's Kitchen. They've also been handling considerable health-and-welfare traffic, Keown said.

In combination with his role as an ARES member, Alabama SM Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, this week volunteered at a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Organization encampment in Mobile on his state's hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast--and he's using his vacation time to do it. He supported communication for the Red Cross, The Salvation Army and Southern Baptist relief organizations helping to feed flood victims and supply them with necessities.

"There's still a lot of power outages, still a lot of damage--trees down, roads blocked, a lot of streets under water in the downtown Mobile area, and a lot of people who don't have food, electricity or phones here," Sarratt told ARRL. "Until I got down here, I didn't know the magnitude of the Mobile situation." He said Amateur Radio volunteers at the encampment are coordinating on HF with Alabama SEC Jay Isbell, KA4KUN, and providing logistical communication support for Red Cross emergency response vehicles on VHF FM simplex.

Sarratt will head to Mississippi and Louisiana's ravaged coastal areas over the holiday weekend to help out ARES volunteers already there. "Those guys down there have found massive devastation--no power, no cell phones."

The West Gulf ARES Emergency Net remains active on 7.285 MHz days and 3.873 MHz nights, handling emergency and priority traffic only. Health-and-welfare traffic is being handled on 7.290 MHz days and 3.935 MHz nights. The Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) on 14.265 MHz has begun concentrating on emergency and priority traffic and shuttling health-and-welfare requests to its Web site http://www.satern.org. The Salvation Army also is using Amateur Radio for its tactical communications.

Radio amateurs not involved in emergency communication are being asked to keep the West Gulf Emergency Net and SATERN frequencies clear, plus or minus 5 kHz. ARRL advises that stations not initiate any additional traffic into the storm-affected areas at this time.

The ARRL ARES E-Letter http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/ares-el/ has posted a special edition that contains additional details on Amateur Radio's Katrina response efforts. For more information, including links to report or locate missing individuals, visit the FirstGov.gov Hurricane Katrina Recovery Web page http://www.firstgov.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicSafety/Hurricane_Katrina_Recovery.shtml.

Source:

The ARRL Letter Vol. 24, No. 34 September 2, 2005

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