Georgia Hams Respond in Aftermath of Killer Tornadoes

This pile of wreckage in Worth County used to be a mobile home. Its two occupants were later found dead in the debris. The storm smashed the mobile home, scattering the pieces over a wide area.

In the course of assisting the American Red Cross in its damage assessment, Bob Smith, K4PHE, Tom Gossett, K4TWG, and Ken Adams, K1KBA, traveled the many back roads northeast of Camilla.

This mobile looks okay, but the tornado flipped it upside down!

The tornado that struck Camilla damaged some of the same homes wrecked in another tornado just over three years ago. The pole at the left appears to be the extended microwave antenna of a TV station news crew's remote vehicle.

NEWINGTON, CT, Mar 25, 2003--Amateur Radio operators in southwestern Georgia have been helping their neighbors and relief agencies in the wake of tornadoes March 20 that left six people dead and 200 or more injured--dozens seriously. Georgia Gov Sonny Perdue has declared a state of emergency in Mitchell and Worth counties--located south of the City of Albany. According to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA), the tornadoes rendered dozens of houses uninhabitable and damaged many others. Hams have been assisting responding organizations including the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief.

"We have had about 15 ARES [Amateur Radio Emergency Service] members involved at various times and still working," ARRL Lee County Emergency Coordinator Bob Smith, K4PHE, reported. "ARES members of the Albany Amateur Radio Club--who are just about all Red Cross volunteers--have been taking emergency response vehicles (ERVs) to the affected areas to feed victims and provide vital communications," said Smith, who's also Red Cross communications officer. Three ERVs have been driven and staffed almost exclusively by ARES members, he said. Other members were involved with damage assessment, shelter communications and other duties.

Several of the ARES members have been volunteering continuously since March 20, he pointed out.

Dougherty County EC Arthur Shipley, N4GPJ, the disaster chairman for the Southwest Georgia Chapter of the American Red Cross, organized Red Cross and ARES operations. Leon Perrett, K4GCR, and Charles Hunt, W4TGE, handled all communications duties at the chapter's command center, W4MM. The Red Cross established a shelter at Mitchell County Middle School on March 21, and N4GPJ set up a 2-meter station to coordinate communications from there. The shelter closed March 22.

Smith said the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning in the early morning hours on March 20 for Mitchell County in the vicinity of Camilla. A devastating and deadly tornado February 14, 2000, claimed 11 lives in Camilla, and some of the same homes were damaged in this month's tornado. The Albany Metro Area SKYWARN Net activated as damage reports began coming in.

Two fatalities occurred in Worth County, and four others died in Mitchell County, according to GEMA. The dead included an eight-month-old boy and a woman in her late 70s.

ARES District 7 (Southwestern Georgia) Emergency Coordinator J.D. Goings, AA4P, was among those supporting the Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief team. Goings reported that recovery operations in Camilla were going very well. ARES members were doing "a fantastic job" helping out in Mitchell and Worth counties, he said.

"There is a lot of damage, and it is widespread," Goings said. "I would expect us to be there a couple of weeks."

Goings and Red Cross EC Dale Culp, W1BPP, deployed to the Baptist church in Camilla with the Georgia Baptist feeding unit. They set up a mobile communications trailer with radios on the Albany Repeater--the primary communications frequency. They also erected an antenna and a UHF repeater for local communication.

On his way to the Camilla area, Mitchell County EC Tom Gossett, K4TWG, encountered several trees in the road and came across a scene where the tornado had destroyed several mobile homes along an unpaved byway, some 12 miles northeast of Camilla. "The deputy at the scene told him there were people trapped in one of the destroyed mobile homes," Smith said. "The road was blocked with several trees that had to be cleared before rescue workers could get into the scene. The person was rescued and only had minor injuries."

Smith said the tornado took a northeasterly path from Camilla through Worth County, destroying several other homes in its path. "The devastation in Camilla was unbelievable," he said. "This tornado hit the same homes that were destroyed and then rebuilt when a tornado hit Camilla in 2000."

Smith said that when reports began to arrive around 6 AM of tornado damage in Worth County, he and Worth County EC Ken Adams, K1KBA, headed to the scene and surveyed some of the damage there. GEMA reports nine houses were destroyed in Worth County. After meeting with county emergency management and public safety officials, it was determined that the Red Cross would not be needed for sheltering or feeding. Smith and Adams then shifted their attention to Mitchell County to help in that area.

"Stan Halstead, W4GOD, a certified meteorologist and a major and chaplain assigned to the Dougherty County Drug Unit, keep everyone up to date on the latest weather conditions and movement in the southwestern Georgia Area," Smith said. "He was in constant contact with the NWS in Tallahassee."

Smith anticipated that the arrival of additional Red Cross personnel from Atlanta would reduce the need for Amateur Radio support. Officials from GEMA, among other agencies, also were on the scene to assess the damage.

The tornadoes that struck southwestern Georgia were part of a storm system that also caused flooding in Georgia and the Carolinas.

Previous: FCC Official Requests that Maine Ham Submit Weekly Reports

Next: New "Beyond the Repeater" Course in Beta Testing