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[HCDX] In Katrina's Wake, Ham Radio Triumphs
"In Katrina's Wake, Ham Radio Triumphs" is the title of an article by
David Maliniak, who is an editor of the US magazine "Electronic Design".
Among other things, David Maliniak wrote:
"As Hurricane Katrina's fury hammered the Gulf states on August 29, the
communications infrastructure took a devastating hit. Telephone service,
including wireless, became at first intermittent and then unusable in
many localities. Where there was phone service, 911 switchboards were
often unreachable due to the massive volume of calls. The response of
local authorities, now termed "confused" by deposed FEMA chief Michael
Brown, wasn't helping much. The Gulf Coast was about to descend into
darkness, chaos, and, worst of all for many, silence.
[...]
As Katrina bore down on the Gulf region, amateur radio operators, under
the aegis of the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL's) Amateur Radio
Emergency Service (ARES), prepared to swing into action with emergency
networks that would run health-and-welfare traffic into and out of the
disaster zone. As early as the Monday following the storm, hams
throughout the hurricane zone were putting emergency stations on the
air. In one instance, hams were instrumental in the rescue of 15 people
clinging for life to a New Orleans rooftop. Meanwhile, in Alabama,
amateur SKYWARN weather nets kept the National Weather Service apprised
of conditions throughout the state. In hard-hit sections of Mississippi,
hams running off generators and with makeshift antennas were the only
means of communication, getting word to out-of-state friends and
relatives concerning their loved ones.
[...]
Amateurs and the ARRL have made a lot of noise about BPL, asserting that
it could seriously hamper their efforts and those of relief agencies
such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, in the event of a disaster
such as Katrina. It's rumored, though, that the same FCC commissioners
who have given their blessing to BPL field trials will now take a much
harder look at the technical issues concerning BPL and its interference
potential in the HF spectrum. Let's face it: The federal government
didn't handle the emergency in the Gulf very well; it'd be prudent for
it not to sanction a technology that could impede one of the few things
that actually worked."
---
The full article is available at
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=11136
73
Fernando de Sousa Ribeiro
Oporto, Portugal
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THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed
and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License
published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt