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 Previous: Big Project Curriculum, Lab Handbook Now On-Line | ![Next (later) Story](/images/sty-up.gif "Montana Hams in "Heads-Up" Mode in Wildfires Response"){kind=small} Next: Montana Hams in "Heads-Up" Mode in Wildfires Response |
By Robert Mauro, KZ2G
August 27, 2003
An inconvenience for most, the Blackout of 2003 raised a serious set of concerns for people requiring electricity to breathe.
 Mauro operates his Omni 6 Plus from his bedroom. Sitting on top of it is a MFJ-941C Versa Tuner II. His cat's bed is on the right and the green box on the left is his respirator, "similar to Christopher Reeve's," Mauro notes. [Bob Mauro, KZ2G, Photo] |
It was Thursday, August 14, 2003. I was watching CNN and using my respirator to breathe. Suddenly, the electric power went off. The next thing I heard was the alarm on my respirator, which I need to stay alive. One of the hottest days in the year and no electricity! It was 4:12 PM and just the beginning of a long ordeal for me and 50 million other Americans, 10 million with disabilities: we were about to experience a taste of Baghdad in summer.
As a result of childhood polio, I require a respirator to breathe. I do not like power failures, especially in hot weather. I had thought all summer about those folks in Baghdad with no electricity and suffering 120-degree temperatures. Now we'd get an inkling of what they were going through. I use a motorized wheelchair to get around and for years I've been saving my chair's old batteries. I use them to run my respirator during power failures and to run my Ten-Tec Omni 6 Plus at 5 W during Field Day. We only have one Field Day a year, but we have several blackouts a year, usually lasting several hours.
As during previous blackouts, I called Long Island Power Authority's emergency life support number for information on what caused the power failure and how long it might last. I was shocked and unnerved when LIPA said the whole Eastern United States was out. I knew this would to be a long outage. Would my four old wheelchair batteries last long enough to power my respirator?
I called a local
hospital's emergency room. They had emergency power and the nurse I spoke to
said to come right over if I needed to plug in. But like most folks, I preferred
to stay home. I turned on my portable radio, hoping to hear that the power
would be on shortly. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calmed me down by
saying electric would be back in hours, not days. Meanwhile, the temperature
rose rapidly in my room.
 Mauro operates Morse with a Vibroplex Code Warrior Jr paddle set from the back seat of his van. He also has a mobile HF station built into his wheelchair. [Bob Mauro, KZ2G, Photo] |
As the sun went down, my ventilator was still running on my first backup battery. Would it last through the night? The answer was "no." It died precisely at 11:59 PM. I quickly hooked up my second backup battery; the first one had lasted nearly eight hours. Then at 12:02 AM, the lights flickered. Then died. Then, at around 2 AM, they flickered on...and off again.
Friday morning I called LIPA for an update. My second backup battery was already at eight hours. The LIPA spokesperson said the electric should be on by that afternoon, maybe. The weatherman was predicting another 90-degree day and I don't do well in heat and humidity.
Hoping to keep cool, I stayed in bed. Finally at about 12:20 PM, the lights came on. Would they stay on? I left my air conditioner off, but turned on my TV. Governor George Pataki said people should only use their air conditioners for health reasons. I quickly turned mine on and breathed a sigh of relief. I now had power and air conditioning. My taste of Baghdad in summer was over!
Bob Mauro, KZ2G, has been a ham since 1965, when he was
first licensed as WN2UHY, and soon thereafter, as WB2UHY. From his Web site:
"The seeds of amateur radio were planted in me back in the Fifties. As a kid, I
watched Captain Midnight on TV. I always wanted to make a communicator like he
did out of a piece of wire, a spoon and some tape." In 1960, at age 13, he
bought a National NC-60 communication receiver to tune in on the world. After a
bout of childhood polio and two spinal fusions in 1961, he got involved with CB
radio and later Amateur Radio. In the early 1970s, he helped start the Hofstra
University disability advocacy group, People United in Support of the Handicapped.
Mauro is an author and painter living in Levittown, New York. He can be reached
at kz2g@optonline.net.
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