Amateur Radio Support Winds Down as Isabel Recovery Continues

NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 30, 2003--Hurricane Isabel is long gone, but its effects linger in the US Southeast, especially in North Carolina. Amateur Radio activities supporting the storm response, relief and recovery have wound down for the most part, but one disaster relief professional has suggested an additional role for Amateur Radio in these kinds of disasters. In North Carolina, joint Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN)-Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) support for The Salvation Army's relief efforts in the Morehead City area were scheduled to end today. Well over a dozen ham radio volunteers participated. Carteret County EC Rich Wright, KR4NU, said his ARES/RACES team helped in areas where ham radio provided the only reliable communication.

"Absolutely no communications available except ham radio," Wright said of the area along Silver Dollar Road in Carteret County. "This area was hard hit." Wright and his ARES-RACES team stepped in late last week after Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services volunteer Carlos Varon, K2LCV, accompanied a couple of Salvation Army mobile kitchens from New York to Morehead City and, once there, needed communication support. Amateurs also were able to assist at several other sites in the region as well as at the command center in Morehead City.

Scenes like this were typical throughout the areas affected by Hurricane Isabel. Power crews are still working to restore electricity to some residents. [Tom Gregory, N4NW, Photo]

Jay Wilson, W0AIR, has been among the disaster-relief professionals working in North Carolina in Isabel's aftermath. Wilson suggests that Amateur Radio operators can play an important role in post-disaster relief that goes beyond providing communication support to relief agencies.

"Right now, if hams did nothing else, just driving back roads and stopping to talk with people would mean more than you can imagine," Wilson said. "Just helping to spread the word about where canteens are, and where the FEMA/state application trailers are would help tremendously."

Wilson, who recently toured Tyrrell, Hyde and Dare counties, said what he's seen bore little resemblance to upbeat news media accounts that suggest everything's getting back to normal.

"Most--if not all--of Hyde, Tyrrell and Dare counties are without power, phones, water," Wilson said, adding that he saw clusters of homes that had been flattened and people living in their cars. Wilson said that in Tyrrell county, his team often encountered residents who wanted to know when help would be coming. "They were on back-country roads, terribly poor and had lost everything," he said. Working vehicles were rare, since most had suffered storm surge damage, and no one had telephone service.

Venturing Crew 80 member Lisa Harman, WE4BSA, was among crew members volunteering to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel. Here, Harman works at a Red Cross shelter set up at Edison High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harman's father is Dick Harman, WA4USB. [Jason Kobielus Photo]

"One older woman told me that she and her son had been living on swamp critters and drinking ditch water for a week," Wilson related. "The lady did not know that Salvation Army had a canteen about five miles from her house and that they would get food delivered to anyone who couldn't come to them."

Wilson said he and his team drove back to the canteen and asked The Salvation Army volunteers to put the woman and her family at the top of their list. "They told us that the canteen had been operating since day after the storm, but every day people come in who have been hungry and without water for days, and didn't know that help was right at hand."

In another area, Wilson said, they were preparing to close the FEMA trailer and move it because of lack of business. "But I talked with large numbers of people just a couple of miles away who were unaware that any outside aid had been sent," he said. "More than one person said that they saw helicopters flying over every day and wondered when someone would be coming to help them."

Wilson is executive director of Disaster Preparedness-Emergency Response Association (DERA), a nonprofit international service organization and an ARRL-affiliated club. He is among five amateurs--also disaster professionals--working at the FEMA/state disaster field office (DFO) in Raleigh. The team is expected to remain there until October 3.

Wilson said the team made extensive use of EchoLink via the DERA-provided N3DAK portable repeater. The 20-meter SATERN Net (14.265 MHz) provided HF liaison for travel into the primary disaster area.

"Strange, isn't it?" Wilson asked rhetorically. "The emergency is over and now the real suffering begins just as the outside world loses interest."--some information provided via Bob Dockery, WD4CNZ

Previous: Retirement Community Welcomes Hams

Next: "It Seems to Us . . ." BPL's 15 Minutes of Fame