Hi everyone,
I hope this finds every doing well.
As we start this month’s newsletter I wish to thank the following members who responded to the callout of March 26 & manned K4NWS: Howard Moss KC4QJA, Ronnie King WX4RON, Ed Manley W4AGA & Johnny Knobloch.
Your efforts and dedication are appreciated, both by ALERT & our served agency, the NWS.
Telephones and Emergencies – Hints and Kinks
“So very sad and yet amazing” – those are the words that come to mind when I think about the recent images coming from the Japanese earthquake. Here we have, for that type disaster, the most prepared nation on Earth & yet with all the technology and knowledge, once the event began they were helpless as they gazed into the eyes of a tragedy.
The communications infrastructure was of course demolished. Yet a flood of messages emerged. Not via voice communications, but by internet, tweets & texting.
How coul
d this be?
The above modes use much less bandwidth than voice communications. The messages were small enough to literally worm their way around the traffic jam on the web & even if delayed, reached their final destinations.
Lets focus on texting for a moment.
Texting is one of the most popular forms of communications. It’s handy & annoying. Just try talking to someone & them never ceasing to click away. It makes you want to grab them and the phone and pitch both out the window.
But, texting, can be extremely useful for emergency communications.
Consider this. Most cellphones have preprogrammed “templates” or preset messages. Messages such as “call me asap”, “have arrived”, etc.
You can edit these messages and have “health and welfare” messages prepared for emergency use. This is useful for many reasons. One is that if you are in a disaster, you probably are scared half senseless and won’t be able to think clearly & due to the “fight or flight” bodily reaction, you also lose the fine motor skills needed to type out a message.
Having a few simple short messages prepared will simply the process & speed up the situation.
Some suggestions for messages are:
“Tornado touched down in area, but we are ok”.
“House damaged by tornado, but we are ok”
“Am in ______________ Hospital, will call asap”.
“Have evacuated to ___________ will call asap.”
One additional little suggestion:
Make sure to sign the message!!!
Many times I get text messages “I’m going to be late” or “Call Me ASAP”. But, I have no clue who it is from.
One might say, “well just call them back”. But, I usually won’t. Why?
For one thing, while I’m not anti-social, I will say, that there are some people I avoid like the plague. You probably are not one of them (unless I owe you money). But, unless you say who you are, I don’t know who you are. Mark has run into a few nuts in his lifetime, some of them kinfolk, and has learned to go into “stealth mode” for his own sanity, what little he still possesses.
Secondly, if the phone rings and then I get a text saying “call me asap”, I have a pet peeve in that if they had the ability to dial the phone, one would assume they also had the ability to just leave a voice message. That way I can know how to prioritize the message. Some matters need urgent attention, other times it’s just some poor soul who is bored and wants you to be bored with them.
Thirdly, people have ESP when it comes to phones. They know when the Imodium has worn off. When the Go Lightly has kicked in. They know when John Wayne is down to his last three bullets & 300 Comanches have arrived. They know when Alabama is dealing with a game winning, or game losing field goal. They know when you finally, finally dozing off.
In context of text messages, imagine getting one saying “Grandma is in ICU, probably won’t make it through the night”, with no signature, just as the phone dies. Is it your Grandma? Someone else’s Grandma? Is it a wrong number? How do you know?
So, you see why,it’s a good idea to sign a text message.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Mark’s Almanac
The Romans called April “Aprilis”, probably from the word “aperire”, which means, “to open”. This being the time of year being when buds open. It was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before Roman King Numa Pompilius added January & February in 700 BC.
April is less wet than March & rain becomes more localized and less widespread in nature. The sun heats the lower atmosphere near the ground and since the upper atmosphere is still cold, the warm air rises, reaches the dew point line, forms clouds & then it may rain. April is the first time in the Spring season that favors local convective activity, which is why you have “April Showers”.
While April is the beginning of the Spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the beginning of Autumn season in the Southern Hemisphere, being their equivalent of October.
April is peak tornado month, with wide scale outbreaks possible. There are 2
