Here are some excerpts from E-Mail between individuals deeply involved in FEMA and NDMS communications.
From a FEMA Incident Commander who is an active amateur radio operator...
"The subject of this email is Communications and it is from the
Southern Mississippi FEMA Incident Manager. He was without cell phone,
and Internet capability. He cornered a State Police Car and asked them
to be his commo. They said fine but they had no commo too. Jim was at
wits end when an Army Captain came to him and asked if he had any commo.
Jim said no commo and it's a big problem. The Captain said no problem,
and got on his radio and ordered an Army Communications Van to be placed
at Jim's disposal. Two hours later a van arrived and it had 4 guys that
set up a big dish antenna and then asked Jim how many telephones he
needed and what computers needed the Internet? Jim ordered 5 telephones
and the Internet for his laptop. Soon Jim was on the phone to FEMA
letting them know about the situation and giving them his telephone
number. Jim was found by the Salvation Army. They said they can set up
85 soup kitchens but needed $560,000 fast to stock the kitchens. Jim
called FEMA requesting the funding and the Salvation Army had the money
in 3 hours."
"Due to this success story from Katrina, we are all told to use the
Army for communications support and I have the phone number to call when
needed. I fear that what we can do with Ham Radio is too little and far
too late. We can help with Health and Welfare traffic which is not done
by the official part of an Incident."
From an amateur radio operator who works closely with NDMS and on a DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team)...
"Your posting this morning was most timely and coincided with a FL3-DMAT
team meeting I was attending. To underscore the points you made, members
of the Comms unit, all of whom hold an Amateur Radio license, were advised
this morning that NO Amateur Radio, FRS or GMRS gear may be brought to a
deployment, effective immediately. If any of the above is observed by FEMA,
the DMAT unit will lose its funding for the next twelve months!"
"It is becoming more and more apparent the Feds are doing what they can,
short of taking our frequency allocations and licenses away, to push Amateur
Radio out of the picture. I fear once they have achieved success doing to,
they will use it to justify a revocation of spectrum and license privileges."
This should be a wake-up call...amateur radio has less and less to offer emergency and disaster relief communications.
While I like nothing more than a good rag chew on 40 or 75 with my amateur radio friends of 40+ years,
I believe that those days of me being able to do so are rapidly coming to and end.
Today ones community service is evaluated as "value to the community, state, nations." Funding for groups is based on that.
With the money set aside for Katrina and Rita relief, you should have been able to purchase complete new HF dual band stations of every ham in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida...plus a few other states. But that is hardly the amount given to the ARRL.
The more value you bring to the table, the better your position of survival is. This doesn't make it right or anything else...it is just the way it is.
Survival of the "righteous and just" is not assured. Survival of the "performers" is.
What can amateur radio being to the table?
No quick answers or answers at all...we just need to think long and hard about how we can be of significant value to emergency and disaster relief operations.
73,
Walt/K5YFW
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