I'll bet that now might be a good time to check with your local EOC and ask what else we can do for them. I'll bet they are much more in tune with what we are doing and can do and in a few cases that could be very benificial.
PLEASE, if you choose to do that, go within your local chain of command. The very worst thing would be to have a bunch of "walk on" operators contacting the EOCs. Have your regular liaison person handle it!
It turns out that I was contacted several months ago by one of the people at the Lousiana state EOC about NVIS antennas and what they could do to provide statewide coverage. Picked a good time to cover that, didn't they? Their primary concern was visibility of antennas from the street. I'll bet they don't care if it's visible now.
Somewhat different subject (but it does relate to being prepared): I'm amazed at how many of the (AEAs) PK-900s and DSP-2232s (not to be confused with the DSP-232s or PK-232s) have gone by on eBay this last week with little or no notice (VERY low prices). These are capable of doing VHF on one side and HF on the other and having one side talk to the other (Gateway), plus a mailbox available to both (NO I do not have one for sale).
When I mentioned this (TNCs) once before we had one person say "We use plain old packet." That's great if you have a county or state that can be covered by a VHF antenna on the fourth floor of a building. We have "bumps" in our land that go to fourteen thousand feet and often need to interface with packet BBS'.
We supply our served agencies with text, .doc and Excel format support without having to connect with their network (PLEASE don't go into the interconnect discussion). We are also investigating an interface with the internet that will allow "field" people to send regular E-mails with no ISP support in their immediate area. All with a simple little (well, relatively little) box.
Oh well.
C Ya
Pat