This manual is about Communications after a GRID
DOWN event.
We are not talking about RACES, ARES Traffic
Handling or typical Ham Radio Emergency Services. It is about using
communications to help yourself, your family and your community
during a disaster.
I want to differentiate between emergency and
disaster communications for the purposes of this seminar. Emergency
communications like Races, ARES, Red Cross, and FEMA communications
are highly structured. You usually have to take some courses on
message handling, the Incident Command System and things of that
nature.
But disaster communications are more informal,
with communications between individuals for their own benefit.
Perhaps a fitting description would be tactical communications. It is
very unstructured. It "just happens".
Here is a bit of background about how this seminar
came to be.
I have been involved in emergency communications
of one sort or another for many years. As an air traffic
controller, as a hospital administrator with disaster communications
responsibilities, I did search and rescue in Maine for many years and
also was a communications asset for the National Red Cross. And of
course I was very involved with amateur emergency communications in
Maine and now in Arizona.
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| Emergency Communications Response Vehicle at Abita Springs LA after Hurricane Katrina. |
It
was in my capacity with the National Red Cross that I was involved
with Katrina. Their ECRV or Emergency Communications Response
Vehicle was a really impressive communications asset.
I was deployed with an ECRV to Abita Springs which is just north of New Orleans. They had
literally hacked their way into a large county facility. The
interstate was blocked by trees wires and debris. This was an ideal
location for a large resource center as it was at the end of the
bridge across lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans.
The Red Cross set up a large feeding station, capable of
creating over 40,000 meal a day. The logistics and communications
issues were complex and the ECRV was put to good use. I ordered
stationary equipment, Satellite links, VOIP phones, radios and such
to meet their needs so the ECRV could be re-deployed to other
locations, always at the front edge of the Red Cross activities.
 |
| ECRV in Slidell LA. |
While at Abita Springs I noticed that there was
very little communications with either New Orleans or the interior of
LA. I scanned the amateur frequencies and other than the health and
welfare and other EmComm traffic there was little to hear. I was
curious how the amateur technology was being used by the average ham.
I did not hear anything.
I was re-deployed to various locations in
Louisiana. First to a small town which had lost its entire
communications structure. Again the ECRV served until equipment was ordered and deployed.
As I moved from one place to another around New
Orleans and north into Louisiana, I listened for individual ham
activity. I heard none. Ham radio could be so useful for the
individual, yet there was no evidence of any personal use whatever. After Katrina, I was
deployed to Miami for hurricane Wilma. Again I listened, and again
heard nothing. This was really the origin of this seminar.
During the
intervening years since Katrina, I have spoken with a lot of hams
that have had a similar experience. Recently Kris Weed (KR1SS)
described how she witnessed a lack of personal communications during
several disasters she encountered in the south eastern U.S.
So the
concept of this project was formed. Create a document that helps the
individual ham be more effective should he/she become involved in a
major disaster. Then present that document along with hands on
demonstrations at QuartzFest 2014. Then make the document and its
revisions available, free with as wide a distribution as possible.
We
feel that the ability to communicate within and outside of your local
area will be a tremendous help. And you, as a ham have a very
valuable tool. Ham radio is a communications medium unlike any
other. But like most things, you have to know how to use it and the
equipment must be ready. Getting your communications system together
now, is something real and tangible you can do to prepare for an
uncertain future
So let us begin.
