NOVEMBER, 2005 5

Radio among the ruins*

Dr. Bob Conder, K4RLC

After the terrific devasta-tion of Hurricane Katrina,I felt the need to volunteerto help the victims of thistragic storm. As I could

serve dual roles, I volunteered both withARRL/ARES as an emergency radio opera-tor (trained with the ARECC courses), andwith the American Red Cross (ARC). I toldmy wife, “whoever calls first, will get me.”Her perfectly reasonable reply was “Whycan’t you just give money and stay here?”

Two days after faxing my application toWashington, DC, the American Red CrossDisaster Mental Health Assistance Teamcalled and wanted me to deploy immedi-ately for the Gulf area. My 20+ years as aneuropsychologist, with Public Health Anti-Terrorism Training by grants from Home-land Security won out. I was ready to go.However, I told my friends, including TomN4TAB, ASEC Eastern North Carolina, andGary KN4AQ, Repeater Journal editor,that I would meet as many hams as pos-sible and document their work in the di-saster area.

As such, this article summarizes the ac-tivities of the ham volunteers I met, someworking right in the heart of the disaster.Details about the devastation witnessedand my personal experiences are sharedas background, so that fellow hams get asense of what we can expect and will needto offer in response to a Level V disaster.

Before I left, Gary KN4AQ had contactedRon W4VM, head of the Alabama RepeaterAssociation via email. Ron had just re-turned from being a first responder to theMississippi Gulf disaster area. He told usthat he had been serving primarily in shel-ters in the Pascagoula and Ocean Springs,Mississippi (MS) areas. Ron knew the sta-tus of the MS coast repeaters, and said thatthe Gulfport repeater on 146.73 was reallythe only working repeater left. It operatedfrom 0600 to midnight, with emergency traf-fic for Harrison, Hancock and Jacksoncounties. Many other repeaters in the areahad been damaged or destroyed by Hurri-cane Katrina. Ron and others had workedto restore them, but, at this early point inthe disaster, there was limited success.After Ron’s email and description of thedisaster, I hoped that I would be deployedto the Gulfport area.

Ham Radio and HurricanesKatrina and Rita

DEPLOYMENT:MONTGOMERY, AL

I left Raleigh and flew to At-lanta. There, many Red Crossvolunteers who would servetogether met in the airport,while our flight to Montgomery,Alabama was delayed for al-most three hours. Once the pi-lot got his duct tape repairsmade to the prop plane, we ac-tually had a smooth flight toMontgomery. We were taken toHeadquarters in the old K-Martin Montgomery for initial pro-cessing. As we rode up in thebus, I saw a B&W Folded Di-pole, and 2 meter verticals onthe roof, a sure sign of hamradio activity inside.

The entire inside of the oldK-Mart had been gutted andtaken over by the Red Cross,to be used as their processing center inAlabama to deploy volunteers into Missis-sippi and some parts of Louisiana. Diver-gent activities were occurring in different

* Apologies to Walker Percy, author ofLove Among the Ruins, a novel about apost-apocalyptic New Orleans. Percyalso was a psychiatrist trained at UNCChapel Hill.

I had to do something; the respon-sibility loomed over my head con-tinuing to ask the question: whenare you going? I had most of theequipment needed and I just re-

turned from the National Boy Scout Jam-boree near Washington D.C. so the skillsneeded for self-preservation were there.

There would be no problem get-ting off work. And finally the veryfirst section of the FCC rules thatdefine public service seemed toappear everywhere suggestingaction. It was time and themeans were there, so the deci-sion was made. I just had to fig-ure out a way to tell my wife…

Katrina:the Real Thing my first time

RRRRReeeeepeapeapeapeapeater Jter Jter Jter Jter JourourourourournalnalnalnalnalCOCOCOCOCOVER STVER STVER STVER STVER STORORORORORYYYYY

Jeff Martin WB4JM

REAL THINGcontinued on page XXX

Cover photo courtesy of NASA

continued on page 6

K4RLC and his trusty Red Cross van.Bob is an ARRL Assistant EmergencyCoordinator for Wake County ARES inRaleigh, North Carolina

WB4JM is a past SERADirector for Kentucky, andcurrently President of theKentucky Colonels AmateurRadio Club in Bowling Green

6 SERA REPEATER JOURNAL www.sera.org

areas of the building, including staffing,orientation, training, health, and a staffshelter where many of the staff slept onarmy cots.

The activity was frenetic, like a gerbilon a cappuccino. I saw the ham radio deskover in a corner (ironically under the oldK-Mart ELECTRONICS sign). The hamswere easy to spot, as the ARRL flag andARRL banner were displayed proudly onone table and against the wall. I walkedover and introduced myself.

There were two long tables full of HFand VHF equipment. I had already seen aB&W folded dipole outside, as well as two-meter antennas and had an idea about theset up. Inside, I began talking with FredW2FMB, who had arrived from New Jer-sey to provide radio communications sup-port. He was operating with Dennis K7BVfrom ARRL headquarters in Newington.Dennis had brought his ICOM 756 Pro-II,an old Heathkit amplifier, and a Bulgarian-made amplifier. Dennis explained that theamps were needed for 75 and 40 meters,during the early and mid-September solarflares.

Greg W4OZK, ARRL Section Managerfor Alabama, joined them, along with a fewother hams I was unable to meet. Dennisand Fred were handling traffic from theaffected area in the Mississippi Gulf, whichthey passed along to Red Cross staff at theMontgomery coordination site. Traffic cov-ered almost anything: need for radio op-erators, need for Red Cross equipment andpersonnel, shelter status, but not Health &Welfare Traffic, as that was handled on theSalvation Army 7.290 net.

Due to my interest in talking with thehams, I had lost my place in the processingchain, my orientation had to be delayed and

I almost ruined my deployment to the “af-fected areas.” However, when I finally gotregistered and told my supervisor (Sara, atough redhead) I wanted to be deployed tothe worst disaster area, she raised oneeyebrow sardonically and said: “You mayget what you want,” as if I would come toregret that request.

REDEPLOYMENT: BILOXIAND GULFPORT, MS

By that evening we had been transportedvia bus from Montgomery, AL to Biloxi, MS.Our Red Cross Headquarters was theJoppa Shriners Center in northern Biloxi.Upon entering, it appeared to be only asmaller version of the confusion and chaosof the Montgomery HQ. However, its mi-crocosm of organization was more easilyapparent. Within a few hours, ARC hadtaken the Shriners temple and converted

the large indoor space into a fully workingoperational center for the entire Missis-sippi Gulf Coast. It was amazing how thenetworking folks had completely set upcomputer networks. From the balcony, theyhad run rope across the length and widthof the interior, only later adding cables inthe air and then dropping them down thetables so no cables were on the floor… agreat idea.

Outside and to the back of HQ was abeautiful, silver, gleaming Air Streamtrailer with the call letters W4SAN and theCumberland County (TN) Emergency Ra-dio group name displayed. Behind it in afield over a small tent city and guyed in thetrees, was another B&W folded dipole, aswell as numerous VHF antennas on top ofthe trailer.

The Air Stream trailer had been de-ployed immediately after Katrina, and ar-rived when there was no electricity or po-table water, and a disaster scene that Icould only compare to photographs ofNagaski and Hiroshima in Japan, or thefirebombing of Dresden, Germany. Notknowing they were soon to leave and beingtoo busy with my clinical responsibilities, Iunfortunately missed the opportunity tovisit the inside of the trailer. However, assure as someone is a ham, they will be nearfood, so I was able to meet some of the hamoperators over breakfast at HQ (poweredeggs, link sausage and homemade grits).

One such was Gary AG4XO from Knox-ville, TN, who told me that he was part of agroup of Army MARS Operators, and oneof a second wave of operators for theEmComm trailer, which had been com-pleted only weeks before the Katrina disas-ter by the Cumberland County club. I nevergot the complete story on who built and whooperated the communications Air Stream,but they did a great job.

Within several days, the beautiful AirStream from W4SAN had left our Biloxi HQ,

Amateur radio at the Red CrossMontgomery AL KMart staging area

Cumberland County (TN) Emergency Communications Group’s gleaming Air Stream

NOVEMBER, 2005 7

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to be replaced by a smaller utility trailerowned and operated by Robert N8TVU,from Ohio. Robert’s trailer had more an-tennas per square inch on the roof than Icould have ever imagined. I met Robert overbreakfast, of course, early one morning,and he gave me a tour of his emergencyops trailer. Robert was a retired DeputySheriff and the DEC for the Cincinnattiarea. He explained that being a ham andequipping his trailer kept him out of troublein his retirement. Or, at least, that’s whathe told his wife.

At the front of the trailer was a telescop-ing mast of the type used for satellite uplinkon TV station mobile units. I asked Robert

how much it cost. He proudly said it wouldcost $6,000 to replace, but he had known aguy who had three of them and was going tosell them for scrap metal. Robert asked himwhat he would get for scrap, and when theguy said $50 a piece, Robert gladly wroteout him a check for all three.

On top of this, he had a horizontal cross-piece with three separate VHF antennas.He also hung from this, not the B&W foldeddipole, but a simple 80-meter dipole fedwith ladder line and connected to a SGCtuner. He happily reported being 20 overin Montgomery on HF.

Robert brought me inside and I was again

Scrap Metal:N8TVU’s comm trailerand telescoping mast

continued on page 10

8 SERA REPEATER JOURNAL www.sera.org

It’s almost like getting struck twiceby lightning. In 1969 hurricaneCamille tore through my area,

Lamar County, Mississippi, 60 miles northof Gulfport. I was 19 at the time. Therewere so many trees downed it took twoweeks to get all of them cut off the fenceson our 100 acre farm. We were withoutpower and water for two weeks.

It never crossed my mind that it wouldhappen again, but the eye of Katrinapassed so close that we could see clearsky to the west. The wind never stopped –measured at just over 100 miles per hoursustained with gusts to over 120.

My home is 2 miles off of US Highway 11.It took me, my son Tyler KD5LAI, and ten ofour neighbors seven hours to cut our wayout to the highway. All communicationswere out, and fallen trees took my HF andVHF antennas down. The KD5MIS VHF andUHF repeaters nearby were still on the airon battery backup. I used my mobile VHFto check on ham friends who might be onthe air. I found few and went to work cut-ting the trees from our road out to the high-way, knowing we all needed to be able to getout in order to obtain supplies, get medicalpersonnel in for older, ailing neighbors ifnecessary, and get to jobs.

When we finally finished I heard ourEmergency Management Director, JamesSmith, on the same repeater I had used.He is not yet a licensed amateur but thecall was an emergency and is allowed. Ourlocal civil defense personnel support theamateur radio at the emergency manage-ment headquarters and purchased theequipment for the KD5RMM station. Heannounced “We need ham operators at theEOC now! We have no communicationsto the outside world and there is severedamage all around.” Smith was asked ifthe roads to the EOC were open and headvised they had been “cut out” or opened,barely. While rushing home, I tried to findother ops on VHF but couldn’t. The stormwas still blowing quite strongly. I checkedon my family, cleaned off the chainsawdust, changed clothes and went to startpassing radio traffic.

Our station at the Lamar County Emer-gency Management headquarters consistsof an Icom 718 HF, an Icom 2100H VHF andan ADI UHF rig. A dipole is supported bytwo power-line poles furnished and erectedby Pearl River Valley Electric Power Asso-ciation. A dual band VHF/UHF antenna ismounted on a standoff on a 40-foot Rohn25 tower. Both antennas and the entire hamsystem took all Katrina had to offer andthe station came through when we neededit, unlike the fancy, loaded with bells and

whistles trunking radio systems which werethe first to go off the air and leave manycounties and cities in the lurch. When ama-teurs in the area planned the station we usedthe KISS principle so that anyone couldcome in and operate.

An emergency kit has necessary infor-mation about operating in an emergency:ARRL message forms, local ARES membercontact numbers, other items which mightbe needed, the manuals for the rigs and afew spare parts. The club callsign preventsconfusion when ops change.

When I arrived at the EOC, it was a bee-hive, lots of activity. There were represen-tatives from county agencies, ambulanceEMTs, volunteer fire department person-nel and a host of others. Going directly tothe operations room where our station waslocated, the equipment was checked, and Ibegan making contacts with the MississippiEmergency Management Agency (MEMA)in the state capital of Jackson. Mississippistate RACES officer and ARES DEC RonBrown AB5WF was manning the amateurstation at MEMA. I can’t say enough aboutthe professional job Ron did during the 10days of emergency/rescue operations fol-lowing the hurricane’s landfall. He had hishands full with numerous counties and cit-ies passing traffic through him and hehandled most of it alone.

This brings up a point that needs to bemade. We all had some hams come in torelieve us from time-to-time. For that weare grateful. But we all had to work much,much more than should be necessary be-cause there were not enough ops available.In a disaster situation, many can’t be thereto help. We all know this. However, if youcan break away for a two-hour shift, itgreatly lowers the fatigue on everyone.With several willing to operate for shorttours, no one is burdened and everyone hastime to see about their own family’s needs.

Getting to the HF station, I tuned to 7.285MHz where the West Gulf ARES EmergencyNet was in full swing. This is a very welloperated net and has many dedicated opswho did a superb job of handling volumi-nous traffic. Waiting my turn, I began or-dering supplies needed by our relief agen-cies for our citizens. Our county had nopower, no water, many impassible roadsand streets due to downed trees, ambu-lances which could not get to patients andso many other needs that no one can evenbegin to comprehend the devastation astorm like Katrina can cause. One wouldhave to be in a widespread disaster suchas a strong hurricane, western fire, major

Amateur Radio Shines BrightlyThrough Storm Clouds

James L. Lee, KC5TYL

earthquake or something similar to knowhow society, commerce and public ser-vices can be totally shut down and manyleft homeless. The needs in my part ofthe state were so many that I passed traf-fic until my “tongue was hanging out,” or-dering bottled water, ice, outside law en-forcement and fire fighters, food, FEMA,Red Cross, tarpaulins to cover roofs, etc.,etc. Many others were also using the WestGulf ARES Emergency Net and to hear theneeds from New Orleans and the Missis-sippi Gulf Coast was gut wrenching. Hun-dreds of thousands were in dire straitsand the pleas which could not be actedupon as well as the constant barrage ofproblems facing them has caused someemergency personnel to be in need of pro-fessional counseling from post-traumatic-shock.

The Pine Belt Repeater Coalition’s re-peater system was a great help for us inpassing traffic. The system is owned andoperated by a group of six amateursacross south Mississippi. It consists offour VHF repeaters on tall towers and aUHF linking system. This system allowedus to link repeaters from the Coast to theCapital, over 150 miles apart. These re-peaters allowed traffic to be passed di-rectly to MEMA without waiting our turnon the HF net. That sped up supplystreams a lot.

One of the Hattiesburg Area AmateurRadio Club’s VHF repeaters was off theair due to the power outage at the site.The idea of loaning it to the coastal coun-ties was proposed since they had only tworepeaters usable for the whole gulf coastand we had enough on the air for ourneeds. Through his work as a broadcastengineer, Harold Stanton N5GBR securedpermission to locate the K5PN repeaterand antenna very high on the WXXV Foxtelevision transmission tower at McHenry.This would cover most of the three coastalcounties and sixty miles inland. I polledthe other repeater committee membersand the club president, Larry AG5Z. Allthought it was a great way to help andthe 147.360 machine is at work today.

Our area was fortunate in that localemergency management officials had theforesight to allow us to install an amateurstation at the EOC. Those cities and coun-ties that had a ham station were able toget relief supplies on the road much, muchfaster than those that didn’t. Our citizenssuffered, but not as much as others in ourarea did due to the fact that we had anARES presence.

Emergency management officers andcounty elected officials thanked me somany times that I lost count a long timeago. They have told our ARES ops that“the hams came through when we neededthem” and that they couldn’t have donetheir job without us.

NOVEMBER, 2005 9

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impressed to find that this retired deputyhad assembled more radios per square inchthan would be believed. This included histwo HF rigs, and multiple two meter, 220,440 radios, a full complement of MotorolaHTs he tuned to the Red Cross frequency,and a portable repeater. He had two net-worked computers with large LCD screensrunning the N3FJP EmComm logging pro-gram. While all this was equipped to be runoff of generator power, he had managed in-stead to tap into the 20-amp line at theShriners’ Temple. A true ham in every way,Robert N8TVU was sleeping on the floor inthe electrical room of the temple, feeling itto be better than being in a tent.

Ham Radio operations at Red Cross HQin Biloxi expanded several days later, whenRobert N8TVU was joined by TerranceN1CTO, also from the Cincinnati area.Terrance drove a large, well-equippedtruck and pulled a large trailer, donated bya friend. As they hadn’t time to equip thistrailer, it became the storage trailer forextra radio equipment and supplies, soRobert’s trailer could be manned efficientlyfor communications.

OUT IN THE FIELD IN THEWAKE OF KATRINA:

The first day out in the field, my teamwas assigned to visit several shelters, toassess the residents’ ability to return to thecommunity. At the first site, Biloxi HighSchool, I was amazed to find regular Army,equipped with M-16s, stationed to keep thepeace. After the hurricane, the infrastruc-

ture of society had broken down, and suchfirepower was needed as a deterrent tomanage the unruly crowd dynamics. For-tunately, the Red Cross Disaster Team IDgot us past checkpoints for regular Army,National Guard, SWAT Teams, State Troop-ers and Local Law Enforcement – we wereall brothers in arms, ultimately serving thesame purpose of helping to restore nor-malcy to lives devastated by HurricaneKatrina.

The next day, I was assigned to go witha fellow volunteer, a chaplain, to a BuddhistTemple in the Little Saigon section of EastBiloxi, MS. East Biloxi is a small peninsulain the Gulf of Mexico. Driving around East

Biloxi, I got my first taste of the damagethis natural disaster had wrought. The cityhad been reduced to piles of rubble along

the roads, recently cleared by bulldozers,with rubble of homes perhaps twelve to fif-teen feet high for as many blocks as theeye could see. The debris of leftoverboards, bricks, and shingles was harrow-ing, but less so than seeing the belongingsof the people who had lived in those houses,and whose ruined furniture was piled up-side down on the road, in chaos like a two-year-old leaves his toys. Occasionally, thesmell of death blew by, but we were neversure of its origin.

Exiting I-110 and turning left on DivisionStreet in our Red Cross van, we werewaived through a National Guard check-point by a smiling soldier, giving us a“thumbs up” sign. We passed a large foot-ball stadium, dubbed “Yankee Stadium” bysome, and “Compassion Central” by oth-ers. Shining out from the rubble along Di-vision Street, it had become a “tent city”for the displaced hurricane survivors.

Salvation Army signs and vehicles wereeverywhere. I scanned the fences and sawwhat I had hoped for, another B&W FoldedDipole antenna, a VHF J-Pole, and a dualpolarized VHF yagi. One end of the dipolewas tied off high in the bleachers, while theother end was tied to a vertical on the foot-ball goalpost. The VHF antennas were onvarious push-up poles, supported by thestadium’s metal fence, but sagging somefrom their weight.

As I entered Compassion Central andfollowed the antenna feedlines, I found afull HF and VHF setup on a folding table,under a gazebo. Despite the gazebo, the lateafternoon sun shone directly on the equip-ment, baking in the near-record almost 100degree temperature. I found a ham wear-ing an ARES T-shirt, and talked with himbriefly. He said: “But you really need to talkwith Ed. Here he comes.”

When I looked in his direction, therecame Ed W4AGA, in a wheelchair. Ed wasan amputee, with the majority of his rightleg missing. Ed rolled right up and, seeingme, immediately said: “Good, now that

“more radios per square inch” —N8TVU and his impressive collection ofemergency communications equipment.

Compassion Central: W4AGA’s antennas,sagging some from their weight.

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we’ve got three people here, let’s move theawning to get more shade on the radios.” Igladly obliged.

Ed had been there from the beginning,living in a tent and setting up and operat-ing the radios off generators or batteries. Iwas so blown away that I missed much of

what he said, but told him I wanted to re-turn with my camera and spend time withhim. I left with a feeling of awe for Ed’s dedi-cation and strength of purpose.

Within several days, the usual chaosworsened by the impeding arrival of Hur-ricane Rita, still off the Louisiana coast but

sending strong gusting winds and episodicrain as far east as Biloxi.

Some of us decided to head back to Sec-tor 2, East Biloxi, for an interfaith churchservice at the Vietnamese Catholic churchin the morning, then to our assigned ar-eas. The service was beautiful, with Catho-

12 SERA REPEATER JOURNAL www.sera.org

lic hymns being sung in Vietnamese, andmessages from clergy from different de-nominations. We left to return to YankeeStadium/Compassion Central, to find Ed.

The tent city there had been somewhatdiminishing until the approach of Rita.Residents who had ridden out Katrina orreturned to find their homes and busi-nesses in rubble were very frightened. Theyhad returned to Yankee Stadium for shel-ter and/or the hot meals provided by theSalvation Army. Ed had taken his gazeboand table down, due to Rita’s winds andrain, and moved his radio equipment intohis Jeep Wagoner.

Although he had been there earlier thatmorning, he was nowhere to be found. Infront of his Jeep and tent, there was a fadedand rain soaked sign that read “COMMU-NICATIONS W4AGA.” I took a few photosof his disaster QTH and hoped that he wassomewhere getting a hot meal, disap-pointed that I would not be able to speakwith him at greater length.

The remainder of my time there, I wasassigned to Neighborhood Care Teams. Ourjob was to go right in the heart of the di-saster and provide “psychological first aid”and food and supplies to the hurricane sur-vivors who were living in tents where theirhouses had been, or attempting to live intheir damaged houses. I drove a large FordF-350 van equipped with water andGataorade, MREs, junk food, cleaning sup-plies and toys for the kids.

The next day I drove the van to PassChristian and Bay St. Louis (both penin-sula areas in the Gulf of Mexico), two ofthe many formerly beautiful beach-frontcommunities now trashed by Katrina.There the National Guard had encamped,ensconced with several Hum-Vs behindconcertina wire.

What we really were seeking was a cleanPort-a-John. The members of the Iowa Na-tional Guard were more than happy to let usby the concertina wire to use theirs, althoughthey weren’t any better than the rest.Couldn’t find any hams there, and couldn’traise the local repeater on my HT, but thought

all hams could relate to this incident.I was initially unimpressed with my next

daily assignment to a community calledDiamondhead, as the sector map showedit as having had two golf courses and ayacht club. I mistakenly believed I wasbeing sent to take care of some yuppies.However, I learned that this community wascomprised of active duty military and sci-entists connected with the nearby StennisNASA Space Center, named for the power-ful senator for Mississippi who landedmany government gems for his home state.It was my honor to talk with one Navy of-ficer who spent 10 hours during the darknight with his teenage son in two trees, in15 feet of water and in hurricane forcewinds. A piece of a dock had floated by, andthey had made a makeshift seat betweenthe trees, hanging on and dodging debrisblown by the wind.

Another person I met was a hospital ad-ministrator, a person used to dealing withstress and adversity. He told me that de-

spite assurances that therewould be no flooding intheir area, as they were 22feet above sea level, thirtypeople in their little com-munity drowned in thestorm. As he had a brickhouse with a steeple roof,neighbors swam to hishouse, and eleven peoplerode out the storm in hisattic. In case the floodinggot higher, he was pre-pared with an axe to breakthrough the roof. So muchfor yuppies!

Leaving for Sector 7 inwest Biloxi, via Highway90, the ocean highway, itwas amazing to see four

Casino barges, large as the Titanic, tossedacross the highway and up a block or twoin the neighborhood, with barnacles all overtheir base. It gave just a hint of the powerof Katrina’s almost 30 foot storm surge andthe 150 mph winds. Further west on High-way 90, I saw a sight familiar to me onlybecause of a QSL I had once received – itwas the old Biloxi Lighthouse, built in 1847and standing proud and intact, among theruins. I had worked W5B in a Lighthousecontest five years ago, and recognized itfrom a photo on the QSL. Further down wasthe wreckage of Beauvoir, the retirementhome of Jefferson Davis, former Presidentof Confederacy. The superstructure stood,but all the historical artifacts includingdocuments, paintings, uniforms, etc., hadbeen blown to who knew where.

Due to the high winds from the approachof Hurricane Rita, we were called in tran-sit and told to cancel our activities for theremainder of the day. We were disap-pointed, but truthfully my beloved Ford F-350 van was really getting blown around.

Our activities resumed noon the next

day, when the winds had somewhat sub-sided. We returned to one of my favoriteareas, Bay St. Louis and Waveland. OnBeach Blvd., the gale force winds of Hurri-cane Rita were still episodically occurringand had re-flooded parts of this area.Worse, Rita had begun blowing in bodiesdrowned by Katrina. Some were found byconstruction workers around the beach. Istopped and helped one of the many Searchand Rescue teams look along the beach.Fortunately or unfortunately, we didn’t findanybody.

Even though Hurricane Rita struck toour west, as soon as she got close to thecoast, the anxieties of Hurricane Katrinasurvivors went through the roof. Locals gotpanicky, and gas lines ran out into the high-ways, with the rumor mill saying thatFEMA was going to ration gas.

At our Biloxi Red Cross HQ, Robert’sresponse was to crank the telescopingtower down, to keep it from being bent inthe strong winds and rain from HurricaneRita. He was still able to receive traffic fromthe local shelters in Biloxi and Gulfport, andto relay the information via HF to Mont-gomery without a problem. VHF frequen-cies used were the Gulfport repeater on147.375, and simplex on 146.42 and 146.55.The Biloxi repeater on 146.730 eventuallycame back on the air, but I couldn’t raise itwith my HT.

The winds of Rita continued sporadi-cally. By the following Monday, Hancockand Harrison counties had 15 tornadoesthat touched ground, although fortunatelydamage was minimal and no additionallives were taken. After the winds subsided,Robert cranked his telescopic tower backup. But this time he guyed it – one went tothe building, while the other went to a rowof about 12 joined Port-a-Johns. At thatpoint, the Port-a-Johns were some of theheaviest structures on the grounds.

My final day in the field, I was assignedto take Peter (a supervisor friend) toPearlington, MS, which really was “groundzero” for Katrina. Peter had been dis-patched to go to the Emergency OperationsCenter (EOC) there and smooth out someinteragency problems (enough said aboutthat). He asked that I drive him, as he knewI had been all over the western MS sections.Unfortunately, Pearlington – much less theEOC there – was not on any of the mapsthat we had. I told him not to worry, as Ihad an innate sense of direction. What thismeant was that we got totally lost in thebackwoods of deep southwest MS, in bayousections I didn’t know existed.

Out in the boonies, we drove down a roadand finally came to its end, with the bridgeout, over the Pearl River that separatesMississippi from Louisiana. At the end ofthe road, a state trooper was looking overthe bridge at the flood waters still comingup from Rita. We decided to walk out andask the trooper for directions to the Emer-gency Operation Center. His quick reply

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was, “There ain’t no EOC anymore.”I asked him where the police depart-

ment was, to be told there was no longer apolice station, either. When I asked aboutthe Fire Department, the trooper reportedthat the entire small town of Pearlingtonhad been basically destroyed, city govern-ment wiped away, and that all the policeand fire vehicles had been under waterand unusable.

He gave us directions to the former lo-cation of the EOC, then he looked at usand calmly said: “You guys need to be care-ful. There are old Cajun boys out here whowould slit your throat and smile whilethey’re doing it.” This sent a chill throughme, the only time I was personally fearfulduring my time at the Gulf. The trooperdecided to escort us out to what he thoughtwas the EOC, which was a fairly demol-ished middle school where people werestaying in a shelter and food voucherswere being given out. As usual, I was veryhappy to see a cop in full combat gear witha .45 there literally keeping the peace.

Fortunately, that location was not theEOC. We got directions to it, back on thenorth side of I-10 adjacent to the StennisAirport, and back from the coast and river.We found the new EOC, a converted highschool, with the parking lot filled withtrucks and emergency vans. Inside, wefound a Red Cross worker, a diminutiveCanadian woman, Cheryl, who had been

living in a tent on the school grounds fortwo weeks. In addition to the floods anddevastation from Katrina, this area hadalso re-flooded after Rita, and was inminute-by-minute status, ready to leave ata moment’s notice.

I was happy to see a 2 meter antennaon the roof and a simple dipole strung be-tween short vertical supports. Togetherin one room (very similar to our WakeCounty, NC EOC) we found law enforce-ment, EMS, an Emergency Managementteam from Kansas City, FEMA, Red Cross,the Salvation Army, and others I could notidentify. Across the hall was the NationalGuard command office. I asked for a tourand our Canadian guide mentioned every-body including the guys doing GPS satel-lite mapping of the disaster area, but shehad not mentioned hams. I asked Cherylabout ham radio and she said, “Oh yes, wehave lots of hams here.”

Cheryl took me into the radio shack (for-merly the school office) where I met oneham, Richard N6DWC from California, whowas working multiple rigs at one time. Itturns out that there had been 20 hamsthere post-Katrina and pre-Rita, but 15 ofthem had left due to the storm forecast forRita and the re-flooding. Montgomery HQhad yet to send any more hams down. Ri-chard and four other hams were left to runthis very critical communications center.As the EOC and its communications cen-

ter was washed out after Katrina, the hamswere the ones dispatching police, fire, andambulance, using 146.55 simplex.

I did not have time to do a completeequipment inventory. However, thePearlington EOC was amply supplied withdonated equipment from the three majorequipment manufacturers, includingICOM, Yaesu and Kenwood. Richard wasrunning the main HF and VHF rigs off deepcycle marine batteries, wired to float charg-ers. He explained that initially they had toshare generator power, as the large gen-erators were still not enough to power allthe critical EOC operations. And while elec-tricity from main lines was restored, it wasstill intermittent, with recent losses withthe winds from Hurricane Rita.

Richard was a software programmer forTiVO in the San Francisco area. WhenHurricane Katrina first hit, he drove twodays straight on his own, to come down andman the communications center there be-fore other help arrived. Richard was nota-bly worn down from sleeping on the floorfor weeks, but cheered knowing that hisefforts and those of his other ham volun-teers were so critical.

At one point, Richard told about a fel-low ham at a shelter finding a teacher inmuch distress. She told the ham that herschool had been destroyed and that manyof her students were dead by drowning.She was incredibly upset. The ham had

14 SERA REPEATER JOURNAL www.sera.org

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NOVEMBER, 2005 15

called in to the EOC and an ambulancehad been dispatched, taking her to a lo-cal medical center. Later, the ER physi-cian called the ham and thanked him, say-ing that the teacher was imminentlysuicidal and most certainly would havekilled herself out of grief if the ham hadnot intervened. This is the way ham ra-dio works when it has to. I made a specialnote to myself to mention the bravery ofRichard N6DWC and the hams manningthis EOC if I was ever in a position to cata-log this disaster.

My final morning before flying out, Isaw Robert and Terrance at breakfast atthe Red Cross HQ in Biloxi. Robert’s towerwas fully extended, and still guyed to thePort-A-Johns. And they were still 20 overinto Montgomery.

IMPRESSIONS:For the ham preparing to offer disas-

ter assistance, a summary equipment listwould include almost anything you wouldhave in or around your emergencyequipped shack or mobile – HF, VHF andUHF rigs; automobile or deep cycle ma-rine batteries and chargers; gasoline gen-erators; push-up pole supports for verti-cals and yagis for VHF/UHF; andcommercial or homebrew dipoles for HF.As availability of the Internet (even satel-lite services) was slim-to-none due to in-frastructure damage, hardly any hamcommunications was conducted by thismode, eg, Echolink or IRLP. Also, as therepeaters were basically destroyed ordamaged, the majority of ham communi-cations was point-to-point simplex, andHTs were of limited use, except for short“intercom” communications.

Assessment of the successes and weak-nesses of our radio capabilities shouldhelp us in our emergency communicationssimulations and planning for future disas-ters, natural or man-made.

Although everybody who volunteeredor worked this indescribable disaster inany capacity deserves many thanks, Iwant to especially thank all the hams: Ed,Dennis, Fred, Terrance, Robert, and Ri-chard, and others I wasn’t able to meetor get their names. They demonstratedthe very best about ham radio pubic ser-vice, leaving their families and jobs (manywould have to take this time as “vacation”or with lost pay), and sometimes placingthemselves in harm’s way to provide thecommunications backbone to a commu-nity whose people and infrastructurewere devastated. The often-cited phraseabout ham radio “When all else fails….”was no longer just a slogan on a Field DayT-shirt. It was the truth.

The decision was not made comfortably,however (some of you may relate to this),as I did not have any Emergency Communi-cations training to include the ARRLcourse(s) and locally we had not partici-pated in any EC training to include practi-cal exercises with ARES, RACES, or theLocal EM for some time. But I figured thatmy military experience would help me topick up on operational procedures (and itdid). So, not having participated in anythinglike this before the first task at hand was tofind out who to contact and who would givepermission to proceed. There had to be sometype of organized dispatching.

The first place I went to was the ARRLweb site were one could sign up on the Hur-ricane Katrina Disaster Communica-tions Volunteer Registration & MessageTraffic Database, but the form was clunkyand hard to use. On September 2nd (Friday)the ARRL issued a news release seekingAmateurs to help with the Red Cross and inan effort to work in cooperation with thedatabase folks solicited eager volunteers tosend an email to katrina@arrl.org, which Idid. That Saturday I received a reply backfrom Dave Patton NN1N, advising me to pro-ceed to Montgomery Alabama, the RedCross Marshalling area. Sweat started toappear on my forehead… I had really doneit now! In addition, I still had not told mywife any of this!

This being Labor Day weekend, I had towait until Tuesday to contact my employerand tell them my plan, which was to leaveon Wednesday… no problem. So I packedmy truck with all kinds of equipment andsupplies. I have a FordRanger type of truck with anugly topper that ended upbeing completely full. I bor-rowed a generator from myemployer, and two full 5-galfuel tanks and fire extin-guishers from a local busi-ness. All the antennas andradio gear I had, most of thecamping equipment I had,and food and water were thecontents. At that time theARRL had not posted therecommended vaccine shotsso I called my doctor and re-ceived a Tetanus and Hep-Ashot, not knowing where Iwould end up. Later on I dis-covered that I did not needthe Hep-A. I then told mywife what was up…

She was OK with every-thing as I suspected. Beinga military wife helped out –she was accustomed to myabsence. Come Wednesdaymorning I headed out thedoor to Montgomery. It was

about a six hour drive, not too bad but Iwas a little tired by the time I arrived. TheRed Cross Marshalling building was anabandoned K-Mart. The parking lot wasfull of rental trucks, not much else but afew cars. There were tables everywhereand people scurrying about inside. I regis-tered with the Red Cross (required), re-ceived my ID, and then found the ARRLarea and met with ARRL Alabama SectionManager Greg Sarratt W4OZK. He askedme what equipment I had brought and thendirected me to a Red Cross shelter inHurley MS, a high school. I had brought aVHF 5-element beam with me and theyneeded such an antenna at East CentralHigh as it was about 30 miles northeast ofthe coast where Net Control was located(Ocean Springs).

After another three hours on the roadand a fill up in Mobile (recommended byGreg) I arrived at the high school. It wasabout 9 PM, and I was dog-tired. As I ap-proached the coast area I could see someof the destruction – it was bad. The thingthat I did not think of was hooking my GPS(of which I brought) to a laptop to help withdirections (da!). There were no streetlightsand I could not read the street signs; it wasreal dark and quiet, almost spooky. I madea call on the simplex frequency as I gotcloser to the high school and Ron ShafferW4VM at the Vancleave School Sheltertalked me in to Hurley. There were severalhams there already, all trying to help es-tablish comms with NC with marginal suc-

THE REAL THING continued from page 5

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cess. We put up the beam the next morning with success and thenJim Wingate WA2EIU and I stayed while the others were sent toother locations.

We both spent several days there supporting the Red Cross andthe shelter before Jim had to leave. I then spent a few days bymyself, but luckily I had a Kenwood TM-732A dual band radio withcross-band repeat. I hooked up the 732 VHF side to the VHF beam,the mag mount vertical to the UHF side, and then enabled cross-band. This allowed me to be mobile walking around the schoolassisting the shelter manager while at the same time staying in

communication with net control via my VX-5 HT and speaker mic.This setup worked absolutely wonderful!

After several days at East Central the Red Cross moved theshelter operations, staff, and occupants to Moss Point, as the HighSchool wanted to get ready to resume classes. Richard LubashN1VXW happen to stop by at East Central while in route videotaping some of the operations for the ARRL. He went on to theMoss Point shelter and reconned the site for the beam antennaand radio location (still about 20 miles east of Ocean Springs).Using his report and with the assistance of Steve Allee KD5RIW(a local) and his girlfriend, we moved the equipment and antennato the new location. Shelter communications continued at MossPoint for a few days, still operating by myself with the cross-bandrepeat enabled.

We passed all types of traffic. There were the twice daily reportsof client counts, number of meals served, security information, andjust about anything one could think of concerning shelter opera-tions. It was typical to receive a report, almost daily, of someonetrying to get into a shelter who was not authorized too. They wouldgo from shelter to shelter attempting to get food and clothing.

One call was particularly interesting. It had just turned darkand Pascagoula Kitchen made a call looking for one of their ERV’s(Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle), basically a rental truckhauling meals – it was to be back by dark but was missing. Timewent by and no word of their whereabouts so the kitchen issued a911 call. Then word came over the radio that they were at thepolice station in Moss Point, just about a block away from the shel-ter I was working at. With cross-band repeat working I headedout the door with my VX-5 strapped to my belt and my speaker-mic clipped to my shirt and ran over to the police station. I lo-cated both driver and co-driver and was told to have the folksstand by while the Red Cross HQ in Ocean Springs dispatched acontact person. In the end they just wanted to use the phones tocall home and did not realize they had to be back by dark. No onewas hurt or in danger but Ham Radio facilitated their return. Wereally were making a difference!

Then the call came in over the net that we would be ceasingoperations in Jackson County at 2 PM local time on Wednesdaythe 14th. Cell phones were mostly operational and the landlines atOcean Springs were back in operation. The coolest thing, how-ever, was what our Net Control Operator (David Beatson W4LNY)did for the handful of Hams on his net. He arranged for anyonethat wanted to meet at the Hospital Ship “Comfort” at Pascagoulaport. We were given the opportunity to eat a good meal that night,sleep in a real bed, and have a good breakfast then next morningbefore departing for home. It was great! We did try to set up anHF station on the top deck that evening but the Commander wasbusy in meetings so we were not successful. We all left the nextmorning for our home QTH’s with a full belly and a good nightssleep.

Some things I learned:1. Have a small switching power supply, 50-watt VHF/UHF

cross-band repeat radio, VHF beam, UHF Mag Mount vertical, andHT with speaker mic packaged ready to go – don’t forget themanual to the radio.

2. Prepare to work in a scenario that uses simplex VHF fromshelters to Net Control. This means a beam, mast, and good coax.

3. Have a GPS receiver hooked to a laptop for driving information.4. Participate in Red Cross training concerning shelter opera-

tions. There were times that the Red Cross folks operated in sucha way that I felt a little lost. Get the training just so you are famil-iar with their operations.

5. Get trained in Amateur Radio Emergency Operations.

The experience overall was just incredible. The serviceAmateur’s provided to the Gulf Coast area was real-world neces-sary (reliable communications is the key). I was able to use myAmateur Radio License for public service (what we all should striveto do) and the people I met I will not forget. I would do it again ina heartbeat!

ARRL Alabama Section Manager Greg Sarratt W4OZK at theRed Cross marshalling area in Mongomery