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 | Heroes & Helpers - Part II |
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Here's a breakdown on the sequence of events with ALERT Net Controls
at the National Weather Service. This report is based on information
supplied by Jim Smiley, KE4CAP, and other sources:
Jim Smiley was ALERT's on-call operator the week of the tornado. In addition to doing an excellent job of staffing for the event, Jim worked many hours at the Net Control post himself. Here are some of his comments from his report on the day's activities:
At some point (it was quite chaotic around there -- had 14 active
Tornado Warnings at the same time!)
General Comments - Good Category
1. Great response from ALERT folks I contacted to help out. Only one
page didn't get responded to.
2. Overall, all of the operators did a great job. Sure appreciated
Russ, Mildred, and Lewis being able to come in during the day. We need
to get more retired folks lined up as Liaisons to cover the work-day
hours.
3. Support from outside areas was fantastic. Joey, Rick, Tom, on the
Gateway kept us in touch with many areas and handled tons of great
reports. NAS group passed many great reports and ran down some folks
in outlying area to get reports for us. Lisa - KF4C in Tuscaloosa was
fantastic. Sure wish she lived in Alabaster! The guys from Heart also
relayed some good information. In fact, I think there were probably
more hams on their net relaying specific information about the tornado
than was on .88.
4. NWS Staff. We don't mention these guys much, but they really need
to be recognized. Things were so wild that we eventually settled into
a simple communications mode with them that seemed to work great. We
yelled reports across the room -- they gave us the thumbs up when they
got it or the puzzled look when they didn't (to which we yelled again
and got the thumbs up!). At one point the line printer quit printing
reports and Brian ran to the back room so fast to reset the things that
our ears were popping from the vacuum! Brian also reloaded the printer
paper while we were in the midst of things which helped tremendously.
General Comments - Needs Improvement Category
1. Gateway Use. NAS, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Jefferson EMA all HAVE
to get on the gateway. For certain things the Gateway is the best
option and without them online it is no option at all. Here's how it
would have helped out this time.
- Repeater link to NAS nearly failed for approximately a half-hour
during the most critical point in this operation. We had to ask for
multiple repeats from them. They couldn't hear us, we couldn't hear
them (Ed. note: We believe this failure was weather-induced and
not the result of a hardware problem). The Gateway would have given
us a
second communication path
which could have solved that problem. The Gateway also allows their
net control to relay info as he gets it via keyboard without the need
to tie up the repeater to relay to us and to have repeater
acknowledgement from us.
- Damage reports from Tuscaloosa. Lisa had tons of great damage
reports for us which are important. The problem was, we were talking
to her on the dual-bander while trying to perform NCS duties on .88.
Damage reports could have been sent via the Gateway, we could have
given NWS staff a printed copy, acknowledged receipt to Lisa, ALL
without having any impact on NCS duties.
- Fighting for repeater time. Walter Cooney and I both had important
roles during the tornados. He was looking for info on damage and
injuries so he could relay to the EMA. I was looking for info on the
location so we could warn people in the path. We were both on the same
repeater. At one point I asked him to move to .76 (which he did).
Made frequent announcements that he was taking damage reports on that
repeater. He came back after a short while stating that he couldn't
hear (or be heard?) on that repeater. I have made statements in the
past that this, in conjunction with the NCS being at NWS, is a serious
flaw in the operation. What else needs to take place to prove this
point?
- Problems. There are probably a dozen or more hams out there whose
feelings were hurt by the way I spoke to them on the net. I fail to
understand how anyone can be so stupid to break a net which has
tornados on the ground to ask what is going on. I also am interested
in finding out who the operator identifying as "Hueytown Fire" and
calling "Birmingham Weather" during the tornado is. That person needs
to be spoken to regardless of whether they are a ham or not. If
conditions had been a little less chaotic, I would have educated him on
the air about his radio operating practices.
- NOAA Radio. We fielded over a dozen reports of weak/no reception
on the NOAA radio system. I passed this on to the NWS staff but wanted
you to be aware of it.
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