Awesome read! Thank you for this. 



73.
Darren Duff.
amateur radio station KK4AHX.

Vice President,
Cherokee Amateur Radio Society.
http://www.cherokeehams.com

Cherokee County ARES.
http://www.cherokee-ares.org
	When all else fails, Amateur Radio

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Ronald E. Milliman
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 12:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Is there still a need for ham radio operators??

Is there still a need for ham radio operators during emergencies, during the
most serious weather situations? Read this, and I think the answer will be
abundantly clear.

Yesterday, April 18, we had a forecasted severe weather alert here in the
mid-west, expected to hit several states including Illinois, Missouri,
Kentucky, Indiana, among others. Fortunately, the storm wasn't nearly as bad
as originally predicted, but it is a good thing because there was a massive
failure in our various emergency communications systems. Here is an email
just received by one of our local emergency communications centers sent out
this morning:
 

 Many things went wrong on Thursday and they could have cost a lot of lives.
We should be thankful this morning that the severe weather event
underperformed.  
 
 What went wrong on Thursday
 
 1.  The bulk of the regions NOAA Weather Radio's failed.  An extremely rare
event.  This was due to a communication problem with a phone line.
 2.  Some weather radars went down or could not deliver data in a timely
fashion  3.  Land lines were down at the National Weather Service because of
the communication line failure.
 4.  At least one major college network server that pushes severe weather
information out to the public went down  5.  The National Weather Service
chat program failed for many people - local emergency managers, media, and
the NWS use this chat service to relay information to each other during
severe weather events.
 6.  WeatherCall wasn't working for some - this is a service that calls you
when a warning is issued for your location.  The phones would ring and say
it was WeatherCall but there would be no further voice message.
 7.  Some people said their text alert systems also did not work for them
8.  Some local media computers crashed - causing delays for them in
retrieving information.
 9.  There were times people could not get onto the National Weather Service
web-sites leading up to the event.  Slow servers or timing out issues.
 9.  And finally, but not least - the forecast itself ended up being a near
total failure (we got the heavy rain part of the forecast right).  
 
Personally I have not seen so many technology failures since the 2009 ice
storm.  That was the last time the weather radios went down (because of
catastrophic power failure).  


What this statement from the emergency weather center didn't say is that
emergency ham communications during the severe ice storm in 2009 and then,
again, yesterday, was the primary source of solid, reliable communications. 

73,
Ron, K8HSY

Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: [log in to unmask]

Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee

Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee

President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)