 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
|
|
 Previous: North Carolina Hams Gear Up as Ophelia Makes Up Her Mind |  Next: The K7RA Solar Update |
NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 15, 2005--ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, has provided written testimony on Amateur Radio's response in the Hurricane Katrina disaster to the US House Government Reform Committee. Haynie submitted the testimony to the congressional panel today "on the successful efforts of Amateur Radio operators providing communications for first responders, disaster relief agencies and countless individuals in connection with the Hurricane Katrina relief effort" on behalf of the League.
"As has been proven consistently and repeatedly in the past, when communications systems fail due to a wide-area or localized natural disaster, Amateur Radio works, right away, all the time," Haynie's statement said. "This report is not, therefore, a statement of concern about what must be changed or improved. It is, rather, a report on what is going right, and what works, in emergency communications in the Gulf Coast and what can be depended on to work the next time there is a natural disaster, and the times after that."
The congressional committee, chaired by Virginia Republican Tom Davis, is holding hearings on the Hurricane Katrina response. Haynie told the panel that upward of 1000 Amateur Radio volunteers were or have been serving in the stricken area to provide communication for served agencies such as the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army and to facilitate interoperability among agencies.
"Trained volunteer Amateur Radio operators are also providing health-and-welfare communications from within the affected area to the rest of the United States and the world," Haynie said. "In the past week, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency all put out calls for volunteer Amateur Radio operators to provide communications, because phone lines and cell sites were inoperative, and public safety communications facilities were overwhelmed due to loss of repeater towers and the large number of first responders in the area."
Haynie pointed out that the main reason Amateur Radio works when other communication systems fail during natural disasters is that it's not infrastructure-dependent and is decentralized. "Amateurs are trained in emergency communications. They are disciplined operators, and their stations are, in general, portable and reliable," he told the panel.
The ARRL President also put in a good word for the FCC's Enforcement Bureau for what he called "its efficient and successful efforts" during the hurricane response in monitoring HF nets to minimize incidents of interference.
"The Committee should be aware that this vast volunteer resource is always at the disposal of the federal government," Haynie concluded. "The United States absolutely can rely on the Amateur Radio Service. Amateur Radio provides immediate, high-quality communications that work every time, when all else fails."
|
September 15, 2005
Chairman Davis and Ranking Member Waxman, as President of ARRL, the National Association for Amateur Radio, it gives me great pleasure to provide this statement for the record to the Committee on the successful efforts of Amateur Radio operators providing communications for First Responders, Disaster Relief agencies, and countless individuals in connection with the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. As has been proven consistently and repeatedly in the past, when communications systems fail due to a wide-area or localized natural disaster, Amateur Radio works, right away, all the time. This report is not, therefore, a statement of concern about what must be changed or improved. It is, rather, a report on what is going right, and what works, in emergency communications in the Gulf Coast, and what can be depended on to work the next time there is a natural disaster, and the times after that. Right now, an all-volunteer "army" of approximately 1,000 FCC-licensed Amateur Radio operators is providing continuous high-frequency, VHF and UHF communications for State, local and Federal emergency workers in and around the affected area in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These communications are provided for served agencies such as the American National Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and to facilitate interoperability between and among these agencies; First Responders; FEMA, VOAD (National Volunteers Active in Disasters) and other agencies. Trained volunteer Amateur Radio operators are also providing health and welfare communications from within the affected area to the rest of the United States and the world. In the past week, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency all put out calls for volunteer Amateur Radio operators to provide communications, because phone lines and cell sites were inoperative, and public safety communications facilities were overwhelmed due to loss of repeater towers and the large number of First Responders in the area. Amateur Radio operators responded en masse: Approximately 200 Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) trained communicators responded to the Gulf Coast in the past week. The Red Cross has now said, a week after they issued the call, that they have enough radio operators and Amateur Radio communications facilities. The number of Amateur Radio operators providing communications in the three States, either deployed or awaiting relief duty on-site or at a reserve facility in Montgomery, Alabama, swelled from 800 to 1,000 in a week. Many more thousands of radio amateurs outside the affected area are regularly monitoring radio traffic and relaying thousands of messages concerning the welfare and location of victims. The principal reason why Amateur Radio works when other communications systems fail during natural disasters is that Amateur Radio is not infrastructure-dependent, and is decentralized. Amateurs are trained in emergency communications. They are disciplined operators, and their stations are, in general, portable and reliable. High-frequency Amateur Radio communications, used substantially in this emergency communications effort, require no fixed repeaters, cable or wirelines. Portable repeaters for VHF and UHF communications can be provided via mobile facilities (many Amateur Radio groups have deployed communications vans in the Gulf Coast for precisely this purpose) in affected areas instantly. There are now approximately 670,000 licensees of the FCC in the Amateur Service at present, which assures the presence of Amateur stations in most areas of the country. Emergency communications are conducted not only by voice, but also by high-speed data transmissions using state-of-the-art digital communications software known as WinLink. As Motorola's Director of Communications and Public Affairs stated yesterday: "Amateur Radio communications benefit us all by having a distributed architecture and frequency agility that enables you to set up faster in the early phases of disaster recovery and can provide flexible and diverse communications...Motorola believes that the Amateur Radio spectrum provides valuable space for these important communications." In Mississippi, FEMA dispatched Amateur Radio operators to hospitals and evacuation shelters to send emergency calls 24 hours per day. At airports in Texas and Alabama, radio amateurs track evacuees and notify the Baton Rouge operations center of their whereabouts so their families will be able to find them. Amateur Radio operators in New Orleans participated directly in locating stranded persons, because local cellphone calls could not be made by stranded victims due to the inoperative wireline systems in the area. The Red Cross deploys qualified amateur radio volunteers at its 250 shelter and feeding station locations, principally in Mississippi, Alabama and northern Florida. The local 911 operators could not handle calls from relatives calling in from outside the affected area, so they passed those "health and welfare" inquiries to amateur radio operators stationed at the 911 call centers, for relay of information back to New Orleans to facilitate rescue missions for stranded persons. Amateur Radio has provided a communications link between Coast Guard helicopters and emergency centers because the ambulance crews couldn't contact the helicopters directly. In Texas, Amateur Radio operators are working 24 hours per day in the Astrodome in Houston and the Reliant Center next door, and as well in the Harris County Emergency Operations Center. In San Antonio, at the Kelly Air Force Base, radio amateurs from Montana are providing local and national health and welfare communications for evacuees. These examples are repeated throughout the Gulf Coast and in the cities in the southern states receiving large numbers of evacuees. The Salvation Army operates its own Amateur Radio communications system using Amateur Radio volunteers, known as SATERN. In the Hurricane Katrina effort, SATERN has joined forces with the federal SHARES program (SHAred RESources), which is a network of government, military and Military Affiliate Radio Service (MARS) radio stations. MARS is an organized network of Amateur Radio stations affiliated with the different branches of the armed forces to provide volunteer communications. SATERN has, in the Katrina relief effort, received over 48,000 requests for emergency communications assistance, and the affiliation with the SHARES program allows the Salvation Army to utilize Federal frequencies to communicate with agencies directly. This is but one example of the innovative and reliable means by which Amateur Radio right now provides organized interoperability on a scope far beyond that now being planned for local and State public safety systems. Amateur Radio is largely invisible to both the FCC and to Congress on a daily basis, because it is virtually self-regulating and self-administered. It is only during emergencies that the Amateur Radio Service is in the spotlight. At other times, emergency communications and technical self-training and advancement of telecommunications technology occupy licensees' time. For the first time ever, in recognition of the work of Amateur Radio Operators in this Hurricane Relief effort, the Corporation for National And Community Service (CNCS), which provides strategic critical support to volunteer organizations which in turn provide services to communities, has made a $100,000 grant supplement to ARRL to support the Katrina emergency communications efforts in the Gulf Coast. This enables ARRL to reimburse to a small degree, on a per diem basis, some of the expenses that radio amateurs incur personally in traveling to the Gulf Coast to volunteer their time and effort. The CNCS grant is an extension of ARRL's three-year, Homeland Security training grant, which has to date provided certification in emergency communication training protocols to approximately 5,500 Amateur Radio volunteers over the past three years. ARRL wishes to commend the FCC's Enforcement Bureau for its efficient and successful efforts during the ongoing Hurricane relief in monitoring the Amateur Radio High Frequency bands to prevent or quickly remedy incidents of interference. The Committee should be aware that this vast volunteer resource is always at the disposal of the Federal government. The United States absolutely can rely on the Amateur Radio Service. Amateur Radio provides immediate, high-quality communications that work every time, when all else fails.
Respectfully submitted, ARRL--the National Association for Amateur Radio By: Jim Haynie, President |
| Previous: North Carolina Hams Gear Up as Ophelia Makes Up Her Mind | Next: The K7RA Solar Update |
