The Northwest storms - a personal view

It's not often that Amateur Radio Newsline personnel get involved in emergency communications efforts, but it did happen to one of their volunteer staff members during the recent Pacific Northwest storms.

That person is Don Carlson, KQ6FM, up in Reno, Nevada, and it hit very close to home. Don tells the story in his own words:

It was December 3, 2007 and a dangerous storm had just hit the Pacific Northwest, causing major power and telephone outages and widespread damage to many areas of northern Oregon and southwest Washington. I received a phone call from my father-in-law in southern California regarding the welfare of my wife's aunt Millie and Uncle Don in Tillamock County, Oregon. They could not get any response due to the lack of phone service, and since they are an elderly couple, the concern was great.

Our Nevada Northeast DEC, Joe, N7JEH and I talked via IRLP, and he gave me the operating frequency on 75m where hams up there had started a net. I then went to that frequency where I found their signals to be at least 10 over all the way. I was able to contact Jerry, KB7LNR, Joe, N7HAE and David, W7PDQ. Between them, all of the information on Don and Millie was taken, including physical address and phone number, and said that they would do what they could to both locate them and find out health and welfare information on them.

The next day I received an email telling us that Don and Millie were fine. They had lost an outbuilding shed at the back of the house, had indeed lost power and telephone service, but that they were fine and the house was intact. The wind gusts had been recorded at 129 mph in that area! I immediately called my father-in-law and reported back that they were ok, and that they would call once phone service had been restored. Turns out that this took a couple of days.

Once their phone was working again, Uncle Don called us and said, one of your ham friends contacted us to see if we were alright. What you hams do is a great service to us. He noted that while they lived 2 miles inland from the ocean, they could hear the surf pounding the coast like it was next door ­ even from that distance. They were grateful that the damage was minimal, and more so for what amateur radio has the ability to do, when conventional means of communication have been lost.

This is why we train ­ this is what we amateurs do! When a disaster strikes, and it can anywhere and at any time ­ this makes it all worth the effort. Thank you to the amateurs in Oregon for helping us to get the messages through, when it was the only way to communicate.

Remember always the motto, "When all else fails there's Amateur Radio."

Don Carlson, KQ6FM
Reno, Nevada

And oh how very true the words -- "When all else fails there's Amateur Radio" -- really are.

Source: ARNewsline, KQ6FM