Ham radio before FCC on Katrina e-comms

If any lessons need to be learned about dealing with disasters like Hurricane Katrina, one of the main ones would be that amateur radio needs to be part of the response plan.

That's the message members of an FCC panel heard during a two-day meeting looking at Katrina's impact on communications networks.

Sarratt: "I think amateur radio played a huge role."

Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, is the ARRL's Section Manager in Alabama. He has a pretty good idea of amateur radio's value during Katrina's aftermath - Sarratt spent 37 days helping the Red Cross coordinate disaster communications from Montgomery, Alabama. Sarratt addressed the panel members meeting in Mississippi March 7th and 8th. He told the members about the huge role hams played:

Saratt: "My message was mainly awareness of the Amateur Radio service. A message of what we did during Katrina to help out thousands of displaced people, public service agencies, the Emergency Management and all the different relief organizations"

Sarratt helped coordinate over 200 hams involved in disaster
communications. In many cases, Sarratt says hams did a lot more than just communicate to help:

Sarratt: "We went in and set up communications where there were none. We assisted other public service agencies with communications and people. The technical aspect of Amateur Radio really shone throughout. We had Amateurs that were fixing fork-lifts; repairing phone systems; repairing antennas,
repeaters and lots of systems down there."

Sarratt says many hams coming in to help from other states and even Canada ran into a problem - because they lacked local identification, their access to disaster areas was often hampered. Sarratt gave panel members a suggestion on how to fix that problem:

Sarratt: "Credentialling, especially a federally recognized or other well known credential like an FCC credential will help Amateurs when requested to go into an area. They'll be able to get in easily and be immediately recognized by the folks in the disaster area.

Because of Katrina, Sarratt believes disaster officials have a more positive impression of amateur radio:

Sarratt: "I believe their awareness and their view of Amateur Radio has to be much greater because in every panel where there are meetings and discussions, Amateur Radio comes up in a positive light."

When it comes to assuring that disaster officials will always think of amateur radio during emergencies, Sarratt suggests that the biggest work is up to hams themselves. Practice disaster scenarios constantly, he says, and work to keep amateur radio visible for the help it can offer during crisis times.

Sarratt agrees with other experts in the field of emergency communications who say that training and practice are the only way to be ready for any disaster. Hurricane Katrina proved that to be true and it seems that hams were the only communicators really ready when that killer storm came
ashore.

David Black, KB4KCH
Amateur Radio Newsline.

Source: ARNewsline

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