Ham operators among Katrina's unsung heroes
GULFPORT - Tom Hammack says he knew it was going to be bad. His ham radio colleagues did, too, but none of them knew how bad. How could they?
Forty-some hours before Hurricane Katrina inundated the Mississippi Coast, Hammack, John Moore, Glover Hayden and Raymond Taber hunkered down in the Emergency Operations Center of the Harrison County Civil Defense headquarters in Gulfport. They went through a familiar drill, one they hadn't executed in recent memory. They prepared for any communications emergency Hurricane Katrina might bring and settled in for the duration.
That would be six weeks for some.
Hammack was the last of the four to move out of the EOC - Oct. 10, 2005.
"If it hadn't been for the amateur radio operators," Gen. Joe Spraggins, Harrison County EOC director, has said, "we wouldn't have had communications with other agencies... . ham radio saved the day."
Hams are among Katrina's unsung heroes. They were on the job 24/7, from Aug. 29 to Oct. 10, and worked 18- to 20-hour shifts, tapering off to 12 toward the end of their stay in the courthouse in Gulfport.
"On the radio, people were stepping up to the plate," Hayden remembers. His carefully crafted pre-Katrina structural chart went out the window, and "I broke so many (ham) rules to expedite messages and to get ambulances to hurt people."
Hammack concurs: "We had nothing but the best cooperation from everyone, but forget about Plan B. We were on plans E and F before we were through."
Moore remembers that during the hurricane, he reached another ham in Wiggins, "And he had phone service, so he made calls to Camp Shelby to stay in touch with the National Guard." A Guard officer, standing near Moore's elbow, is said to have grumbled, "Here I am with $40 million of electronics equipment, and the only ones who can get through are the amateurs."
"Radio amateurs have to be here," says Moore. "Modern technology is great, but when it goes out, it's out. Our equipment is low-tech, but it's reliable, and if it breaks, we can find ways to fix it."
Read More Here
Forty-some hours before Hurricane Katrina inundated the Mississippi Coast, Hammack, John Moore, Glover Hayden and Raymond Taber hunkered down in the Emergency Operations Center of the Harrison County Civil Defense headquarters in Gulfport. They went through a familiar drill, one they hadn't executed in recent memory. They prepared for any communications emergency Hurricane Katrina might bring and settled in for the duration.
That would be six weeks for some.
Hammack was the last of the four to move out of the EOC - Oct. 10, 2005.
"If it hadn't been for the amateur radio operators," Gen. Joe Spraggins, Harrison County EOC director, has said, "we wouldn't have had communications with other agencies... . ham radio saved the day."
Hams are among Katrina's unsung heroes. They were on the job 24/7, from Aug. 29 to Oct. 10, and worked 18- to 20-hour shifts, tapering off to 12 toward the end of their stay in the courthouse in Gulfport.
"On the radio, people were stepping up to the plate," Hayden remembers. His carefully crafted pre-Katrina structural chart went out the window, and "I broke so many (ham) rules to expedite messages and to get ambulances to hurt people."
Hammack concurs: "We had nothing but the best cooperation from everyone, but forget about Plan B. We were on plans E and F before we were through."
Moore remembers that during the hurricane, he reached another ham in Wiggins, "And he had phone service, so he made calls to Camp Shelby to stay in touch with the National Guard." A Guard officer, standing near Moore's elbow, is said to have grumbled, "Here I am with $40 million of electronics equipment, and the only ones who can get through are the amateurs."
"Radio amateurs have to be here," says Moore. "Modern technology is great, but when it goes out, it's out. Our equipment is low-tech, but it's reliable, and if it breaks, we can find ways to fix it."
Read More Here
posted by W. Thomas Miles @ Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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