Yesterday (last night to be specific) I decided to set up the gear to monitor as much as Superstorm Sandy as I could… Twitter, ECHOLINK and HF SSB gave me a good deal of information and that was almost to the point of overloading the senses… I can only imagine what the Communicators were going through in the areas strongly impacted by Sandy…
NYC ARECS (twitter @nycaresc) did an excellent job of letting us know what was happening in the Big Apple via their tweets… They have a very large and comprehensive Frequency List on their Website should you ever be in NYC in a bad time…
The VOIP Weather Net ( http://www.voipwx.net/) Was active with numerous Repeaters Linked together via ECHOLINK and the IRLP . This gave an excellent image of what was happening locally in the Eastern Seaboard area. From trees down, power out and flooding it brought it all down to a level that was easier to comprehend… When you hear a guy saying that the tree in his yard has just taken out the power lines in front of his house… It brings it home…
The Hurricane Watch Net (http://www.hwn.org/ ) operating on 7.268 and 14.325 gave us a large picture of the damages and conditons from Maine to the Carolinas… I remember one station remarking that he lived in West Virginia and the temp was 31 deg F and they had 12 inches of wet snow snapping branches and bringing wires down…
For those of you not in a colder area… In the fall before all the leaves fall off the trees an early snowstorm puts extra weight on the trees as the leaves collect the snow… Add to this a gusty wind and the snow covered leaves are now a sail that puts lots of pressure on the branches… The branches snap and fall to the ground…. or across Hydro/phone lines… They also have been known to take out antennas the same way…
So in conclusion…
So what I heard was about 4 hours worth of good Comminicators doing what they had trained for… There was no panic in the voices… There was urgency…. In my opinion the groups did an excellent job of providing communications under less than stellar conditions… No exercise can prepare you for operating in the field when your field is underwater and blowing away…
Bravo Zulu to all concerned
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, Amateur Radio Emergency Communications, Amateur Radio Emergency Services, echolink, Hurricane Watch Net, NYC-ARECS, VOIP Weather Net
October 31, 2012 at 4:29 pm |
Bob: As I mentioned on my own blog a couple of days ago, I became involved with the Hurricane Watch Net on 40 meters. I was in a position to hear stations that the Net Control AF0ML could not. Therefore I was asked several times to relay pertinent information to him for transference to the National Hurricane Center. I also was able to assist in logging stations in the affected areas, and to here the local descriptions of some of the damage. Believe me, it is an experience hearing dedicated ops talk matter-of-factly about their streets being underwater and their basements flooded all the while passing on reports of the plight of nearby neighbours. I am sure that, when their “job” is done then they will worry about their own situation.
73,
Glenn