Original
Article in the Internet Archive
IN KATRINA'S WAKE, HELP IS IN THE
AIR
Volunteer
communicators are mobilizing for the long haul
By Robert Reed
September 9, 2005
(Editor’s note: This column was written on
Sept. 2, but we thought it
would still be worth reading, although some circumstances have changed
since that time.)
The situation is
changing by the hour. As civil order breaks down, efforts are under way
to get basic communications set up in New Orleans and Biloxi.
With the total loss of infrastructure in the affected area, it once
again comes down to volunteers mobilizing. Ham radio operators
are just now getting into the city of New Orleans and the
communications outposts are being set up as I write this. As of
this writing, 17,000 health and welfare messages have piled up on the
Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN NET) system.
These messages are from concerned relatives of the people who lived and
died in the devastation of the worst natural disaster in the history of
the United States. The SATERN Network will also concern itself
with emergency rescue situations.
Without a
coordinated system inside the affected area, we are not getting an
outflow of information to concerned relatives yet, but it will be
avalanching out soon. I am planning on working all of my off-work
hours to take "100-message blocks" and get them delivered out to their
relatives as soon as they start coming out of the disaster area. I will
be taking phone patch traffic from whoever needs to phone out of the
area, via radio to my station where I will patch them into the phone
system. I provide toll free phone calls nationwide in cases like
this. It only costs me 3.5 cents per minute. It's the least I can
do.
The SATERN Net
is currently operating from early morning until about 8:30pm local
time, with all network ham stations pointing their antennas toward New
Orleans. There are other networks doing the same thing. Today, rescue
requests and other emergency rescue messages were being passed on this
network over the radio. The network is handling medical emergency
message traffic as well. Radio operators are fatigued by the end
of the day, making occasional message handling mistakes due to sleep
deprivation and lack of rest. At the end of the day, it's all
about communications and working around a totally destroyed
communications infrastructure. "Back to the basics" radio
communications enhanced by internet capabilities come together in bleak
times like these to bring information to and from hospitals, and
concerned loved ones. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service chapters for
the New Orleans area will be going into the area and set up their radio
networks.
Ham operators
with their small hand held radios in the disaster area can directly
connect to internet capable repeater stations as far as 30 miles away
from their location, and they can key in access codes to make that
repeater connect to another repeater anywhere in the world though the
internet. The end result is that the small handheld can
communicate to anywhere in the world with the recieving station being
another internet computer or another handheld radio connected to it's
local repeater. What this all means is that this can all be done
without local infrastructure. If the internet isn't available to
connect the local repeater to, it can be relayed automatically over the
radios on multilple hops until it gets to where internet connectivity
is available. Hams are set up for this type of work and have
disaster drills regularly to train for this using emergency power
sources. Cell phone systems will need to be rebuilt, and cell
phones need to be charged and powered. While the infrastructure
to support the cellular system is rebuilt, the ham operators will be
the only link to the disaster area. Should any of you wish to have
information on how to listen to what's going on, contact me at
n6hgg@yahoo.com. Much of what goes on can be listened to on your
internet computer.
Hurricane
Katrina was on our minds at the Hurricane Watch Net for 3 days before
it blasted across Florida to finally destroy most of New Orleans.
Several weeks ago I wrote about the Hurricane Watch Net. It is a
pre-disaster network, helping the National Hurricane Center to predict
landfall. Looking back at the forecasting models, it is amazing how
close NHC was for the land fall prediction of Katrina. My last
shift on HWN was Sunday night. I had a sick feeling something bad
was going to happen, but I didn't think it would be this bad.
It's a grim reminder that when you take all the modern luxuries of life
away, it comes down to an ugly survival of the fittest situation for
all to see on 24 hour a day cable news.
(Opinions
expressed
in letters, columns and guest opinions do not necessarily
represent those of The Eureka Reporter or its staff. Readers who would
like to respond to this column and any letter, guest opinion or other
column may e-mail letters, columns and guest opinions to editor@eurekareporter.com.)
