Ham Radio Comes Through Again

This is the story I've been waiting to hear. Amateur radio operators traditionally serve a crucial role in the initial assessment and recovery from natural disasters. My Dad, a ham radio operator for more than 40 years, has been part of a number of regional events that play out as fun competitions but are really disaster preparedness drills. Ham radio operators in New Orleans, and others around the country in touch with those in the eye of the storm, as it were, again provided virtually the only conduit for information in the first hours following Katrina's landfall.

Those who have been worried about the welfare of their loved ones have faced the same problem: an inability to communicate with people in the affected region. For all of our high-tech capabilities, sometimes it takes someone with a simple antenna and transmitter to provide the vital connection. Some of what these folks accomplished:

On Monday, Aug. 29, a call for help involving a combination of cell telephone calls and amateur radio led to the rescue of 15 people stranded by floodwaters on the roof of a house in New Orleans. Unable to get through an overloaded 911 system, one of those stranded called a relative in Baton Rouge. That person called another relative, who called the local American Red Cross.

Using that Red Cross chapter’s amateur radio station, Ben Joplin, WB5VST, was able to relay a request for help on the SATERN network via Russ Fillinger, W7LXR, in Oregon, and Rick Cain, W7KB, in Utah back to Louisiana, where emergency personnel were alerted. They rescued the 15 people and got them to a shelter.

Such rescues were repeated over and over again. Another ham was part of the mix that same Monday when he heard over the same Salvation Army emergency network of a family of five trapped in an attic in Diamond Head, La. The family used a cell phone to call out. Bob Rathbone, AG4ZG, in Tampa, says he checked the address on a map and determined it was in an area struck by a storm surge.

He called the Coast Guard search-and-rescue station in Clearwater, explained the situation and relayed the information. At this point, the Coast Guard office in New Orleans was out of commission. An hour later he received a return call from the South Haven Sheriff’s Department in Louisiana, which informed him a rescue operation was under way.

Another search-and-rescue operation involved two adults and a child stuck on a roof. The person was able to send a text message from a cell phone to a family member in Michigan. Once again, the Coast Guard handled the call.

Well done. So, before you complain about your neighbor's radio antenna, consider that it (and your seemingly geeky neighbor) might be your only lifeline in time of desperate need.