In St. Tammany Parish,
Louisiana, local Amateur radio operators worked 18 hours a day since what has been
described as the storm of the century struck our area.
Forsaking their own property and in some cases their heath, these volunteer pitch
in. Not only providing communications for the
Red Cross, but supplying the only link to the state capital linking the state EOC with the
Parish EOC. When they are not working as
communicators, they hand out food, deliver water and whatever the need.
In Covington, La. The Communications for
the American Red Cross was moved to a Amateurs heavily damaged home when the local office
lost power. With generator and battery power,
5 Hams using makeshift antennas supplied the Red Cross and the Parish EOC with
communications.
Jerry - W5NJJ worked to
restore his repeater to full operation within hours after the winds subsided and allowing
him to work. For five days, he tended the
generator that charged batteries. Sleeping 3 or 4 hours at a time so the generator can be
fueled and the batteries maintained, this 80 plus year old Ham has given the local
operators the ability to help others. This
went on for 2 weeks until his power was restored.
Tony – KD4SSQ help
open a Red Cross Shelter the day before Katrina hit Southeast Louisiana. He and his brother KD5SSR stayed for 7 days and
nights providing needed communications.
Harris - KB5BFK was attempting to remove a generator from his truck when
a Oak tree crashed onto his truck. With a 5 inch gash on his forehead, and no way to
reach a hospital for over 2 days, Harris was the net controller for 18 hours a day.
Once we could get him the the hospital, he was checked and released, and within a few
hours, he was back on the air.
Noel Jr. - KC5CSN helped to setup antennas once the winds dropped below
50 MPH, them wend on to assist the American Red Cross with their ECU (Emergency
Communications Unit) that arrived after the hurricane with no operator. For the next 2
weeks he assisted, and in some cases installed and repaired equipment with little tools
and parts to work with.
Larry - KD5LWJ operated as control operator for the EOC (Emergency
Operations Center) for Tangipahoa Parish. He and other local Hams relayed messages
between St. Tammany E.O.C. and local Red Cross and the State E.O.C. in Baton Rouge.
James - K5QNT & Bob K5NDT
members of the Southeast Louisiana A.R.C. setup H.F. operations between the St. Tammany
Parish hospital in Covington, LA and the Heart Hospital and the Hospital in Franklinton,
LA. providing a reliable link for the hospitals. In one case, they assisted in
saving the life of a patient in Franklinton by getting a life flight to the
hospital. The patients injuries were beyond what the small hospital could provide.
Mike - W5PY operated at the Slidell hospital for three weeks after the
hurricane completely destroyed his home. Passing medical request to other hospitals,
conducting health & welfare, Mike stayed on the job serving others while his home and
property was in shambles.
Mike - KB5OZE took over
my job as Communications Chair for the 3 parish when torn muscles in my leg prevented me
from working after almost 3 weeks of swelling and pain. His efforts resulted in
saving and transporting over 5 tons of meat from a storage falicity that lost their
freezers. After I got a freezer truck from Wal-mart, he lead the truck into Slidell
and inspected the meat to insure only frozen meat was loaded into the trailer. The froze
meat was sent to the 1St. Baptist Church where it was cooked and loaded onto Red Cross
ERV's to feed citizens on the devastated region.
K5AH - Edward returned
home while the winds were still blowing. Being on the fringe area of the disaster,
Ed began taking Health & Welfare messages and relaying them on H.F. and by phone when
possible. Day after day, Ed stayed on the radio doing a job for free that many would
not do for pay. As a ham I understand we are called amateurs, but their was nothing
amateur about the way the operators did their jobs.
Hams located at two hospitals are credited with saving at lease one life when the only
means of communications to a small town hospital had collapsed.
This is not the end of this story, its
only the beginning and more will be added as time goes on. I thank God for the Hams
that responded to our call for help. Amateur
operators from Texas, Tennessee, Western Louisiana and other places responded to our call
from help. They will be added to this site in the coming weeks as I develop this
section of the ARDS web site.
I wish to thank and recognize the Amateur Radio
Operators that gave of their time to travel to the hurricane Katrina stricken area. These
people from different backgrounds and parts of our country came to Southeast Louisiana
provide emergency communications to whatever organization needed their services.
These operators did not care what job they were assigned, nor did they complain about the
living conditions. If anyone ever needs to be reminded of the spirit of America will
only need to read this page.
Karen E. Johansen - WB5GEO
Communications Officer
St. Tammany Amateur Radio Club
www.no5la.org
karen@ares.org
Dale, AA5DW, and his wife Chanda,
AD5IQ provided communications for three days, as the only communications link
between St. Tammany E.O.C. and the State EOC in Baton Rouge. They came into the disaster
area with their motor home, and he and his wife took over the net control for 8 days
helping to bring a sense of normality and order to the frequencies. Using the call for our
club, NO5LA, Dale and Chanda took turns as Net Control and handled other issues that freed
me up to focus on other important issues.
Larry - KA5NXT Came from Kender, La after the call for help went out.
His employer was kind enough to allow him the time off work to assist in the
recovery effort. For 8 days, Larry was took over Net control from AA5DW & AD5IQ
when they had to return to their home and jobs. Using the NO5LA Larry went about making
sense of all the information coming into the Red Cross communications center and passing
the messages to the people that needed the information so the Red Cross could do their
jobs effectively.
David - K5OLE Drove from San Antonio Texas to assist in
providing communications for the Northshore Division of the American Red Cross.
Being that we had more shelters than operators, David to float between the 5 shelters in
eastern St. Tammany parish providing the Red Cross with information such as numbers of
people in shelters, number of meals needed and other information needed to insure the
shelter population went without the basic needs.
Brock - KG4VUL Drove in from Tennessee to assist in any position. His ability to
communicate on the level of the people with the OEP (Office of Emergency Management) and
the Red Cross made him the perfect person to act as the liaison between the EOP, National
Red Cross and the Net control. For 11 days Brock worked in a little cubby hold at the
Parish E.O.C.
Dave - WB5HJV was
the EOC schmoozer, fireman, peacekeeper, etc at the Parish E.O.C. before Brock. It was his hard work that allowed a smooth
transition for the Amateurs that came behind him that were assigned to the E.O.C.`
Edwin - KL7EMH Who arrived in his motor home and was
sent to the Red Cross staging area by their request to assist with communications between
the local Red Cross office and operations on H.F.. Once the Red Cross got their
communications trucks fully operational, Ed was reassigned to provide communications for
shelters in out lying areas that had lost all normal communications and the only way to
pass traffic was through Amateur radio.
Clint - WA5TMJ In Chicago, who once compacted by Mike, KB5OZE took on
the job of Health and Welfare even though he had no real experience at it. Every
night without fail, he was there when Mike called to pass traffic out the the disaster
area. He, like all of the Amateurs that responded proved our motto that; When All Normal
Means of Communications Fail! Amateur radio gets through. My sincere thanks
to Clint and all the operators that responded to help in this disaster.
Kay Zero Disaster Response Team - K0DRT Came from Colorado to provide
communications for any disaster response that needed their service. Equipped with
camper and portable UHF repeater, these ARES volunteers came ready to do whatever job that
would be asked of them. If a disaster ever strikes my area again, I hope these guys
will be available. Their level of professionalism surprised many of my people
|
|
From left to
right; Dean, Thomas, Mike, Jeff, Wes, Rob and Pat |
| Wes Wilson |
K0HBZ |
Paul Garvey |
K0BLM |
| Dean Haskins |
KA0PII |
Pat Kelly |
KC0MIR |
| Mike Allen |
N0MIK |
Tom Dawson |
KC0NRZ |
George Stone - AC7AI & Omer Fournier
- AD7DY, Both George and Omer arrived at out service center from Washington State
with one goal in mind, that was to help in any way required. The first task was to relieve
2 of out local Hams at the hospital were we had an H.F. station linking 4 hospitals
together as the 800 mHz Hospital system went down within a few hours of the storm
striking. Once released, they took on other assignments. |
