Arkansas Hams Take Stock of Tornado Response
SEARCY, AR, Feb 18, 1999--Members of the North Central Arkansas Amateur Radio Service recently took stock of Amateur Radio's performance when tornadoes struck January 21. For the most part, the club was pleased with its response. "For the first 24 hours, we were it," Arkansas Section Manager Roger Gray, N5QS, said of Amateur Radio's communication support.
Gray, who lives in the stricken area, proposed constructing a permanent emergency net control site in the center of White County. At present, various net control stations operate out of their homes. But during the recent weather disaster, some net control stations were forced to evacuate and leave the air.
After the tornadoes--upwards of three dozen in all--hit the White County area, hams who had been serving as weather spotters moved into the disaster recovery phase. Eight people died in Arkansas, and many others were injured. Damage in the stricken area was widespread. Ham stations were established at two Red Cross shelters and at the police station in the badly damaged town of Beebe. Salvation Army teams from Little Rock and Jonesboro integrated ham gear into their feeding stations in Beebe and McRae. "Over the course of the net, the stations handled untold numbers of Red Cross messages and probably 50 to 100 health-and-welfare messages," Gray said.
Gray himself drew climbing duty when a group of amateurs made repairs January 24 to the Beebe Ambulance base station antenna, located atop a water tower. Hams also worked with cleanup crews. Formal nets ended on January 27.
"The hams of this area have been great and bounced right back," Gray said. Hams even managed to participate in the School Club Roundup February 8-13 from the McRae High School gymnasium. "Almost every student we talked to remembered one of their teachers [Larry Sicks, AC5AV, a math teacher at the school--Ed] sitting in the lobby all day talking on the radio, and it gave them another perspective of our hobby."
Gray also offered some "lessons learned" that he believes will serve amateurs well in future emergency and disaster situations:
- Get your local and state government to issue standardized IDs to
everyone needing access to affected areas. (Says Gray: "If I had not
personally known the captain and sergeant of the state police district and
convinced them that a amateur license should be used for a pass at the
roadblocks, it would have been much worse.")
- Carry a copy of your Amateur Radio license.
- After a disaster is a very good time to seek local government
cooperation to prepare for the next disaster--while they still remember this
one.
- Establish a good working relationship with your local OES, police,
county judge, fire departments and any other emergency service in your area.
- Convince area leaders that cell phones will not work immediately after
the disaster until the cell phone companies have time to move portable cell
sites into the area.("The cell phone companies were great, but it took a
couple of days before their systems were usable" due to saturation, Gray
says. "Even after the portable cell site was set up they were still
saturated for a while.") This also applies to land-line telephone systems.
- Be prepared for an extremely high volume of traffic; the emergency
services don't have enough frequencies to handle it.
- Be prepared to capitalize on the reaction of the public and officials after the disaster.
A newspaper story on ham radio's role in the storm and the club's
evaluation appeared February 10 in the Searcy Daily Citizen.
Prairie County EC John McNeil, KB5DBI (at radio) and Paul Scantlin, KC5BMQ, staff the emergency net control station at the Red Cross headquarters in Searcy, Arkansas. [Roger Gray, N5QS] |
Juanita Freeman, KD5DDS (right), assists at the Beebe, Arkansas, Red Cross shelter. |
Charles Moore, W5IIE, passes health-and-welfare traffic to the Red Cross shelter in Beebe, Arkansas. |
Arkansas Section Manager Roger Gray, N5QS, (visible on nearest tower leg, just above upper reinforcement) climbs the Beebe, Arkansas, water tower to repair the ambulance antenna, 150 feet in the air. [Dawn Gray, N5QT] |
The brand new Beebe Junior High School building was destroyed by the January 21 tornado. |
Michael Goodman, KD5FAQ, assists with health-and-welfare traffic in front of the damaged school in Beebe. |
Darin Dykes, KK5WA, takes a stint at the Red Cross shelter in Beebe, handling health-and-welfare traffic. |