Houston Volunteers and Families Displaced by Katrina Build 'Refugee
Radio' at Houston Astrodome
Need For 10,000+ Radios Before Station Can Go On Air
Contact: Professor Tish Stringer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (713) 478-4559
Contact: Hannah Sassaman, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (215)-727-9620
Relief volunteers and Independent Media organizers in Houston, Texas,
in collaboration with refugees from Hurricane Katrina, have gotten
permission from the Federal Communications Commission and the City of
Houston, Texas to build a 30 watt radio station to serve the families
currently living at the Houston Astrodome and adjacent buildings.
These volunteers, led by a community media publishing group called
Houston Indymedia, are working with volunteer professional engineers
and technicians from all over the United States to get this station
on the air. The Prometheus Radio Project, a not-for-profit
organization that builds Low Power FM radio stations all around the
United States, has worked throughout the weekend to facilitate the
legal and timely launch of this radio station.
"Families are putting up notices on the walls to find lost parents
and children, and then crying themselves to sleep at night, as they
start to let the weight of the past week bear down on them," said
Hannah Sassaman, an organizer at Prometheus. "This station will
provide critical information for families putting their lives back
together, as well as the comfort of programming made by refugees and
volunteers in Houston, just for them."
The Houston Indymedia volunteers, who produce a radio program on
Pacifica radio station KPFT, are moving their whole studio to the
Astrodome and working with volunteers from as far away as Portland,
Oregon to get the station on the air right away. But they'll need
more equipment - radios for all the potential listeners - to make it
possible. When the station is online, you'll be able to listen to it
remotely at http://evacuationradioservices.org/.
"The FCC, the City of Houston, and the staff of the Astrodome want
this station to go on the air," says Rice University professor and
Indymedia organizer Tish Stringer. "But the Astrodome staff won't
let the station launch until we have enough radios for all the
families. We may have some leads on 10,000 plus radios, but we still
need funds to buy them, and to help keep this station going and to
help get other stations like it up across Houston and the Gulf."
The telecommunications industry and the grassroots media justice
community are mobilizing to build communications infrastructure for
the displaced people of the Gulf. But some broadcasters wish there
had been more options for emergency relief before the storm and its
aftermath hit.
Tom Hanlon, a volunteer with a property owners' association in Baton
Rouge that has been waiting 5 years for their Low Power FM radio
license to come through, said this about the exodus from New Orleans
to Baton Rouge: "A lack of accurate information, coupled with the
time spent tracking down false rumors, did more to delay the
mobilization of Baton Rouge than any hurricane. We need more LPFM
stations in our cities to help with these crises in the future."
To learn more, please call the Prometheus Radio Project at
215-727-9620, or visit them online at http://www.prometheusradio.org.
To donate time or services to telecommunications efforts in Houston,
visit http://houston.indymedia.org.
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