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National
Hurricane Center uses IRLP / Raleigh Reflector 921 |
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Just
seven days after Isidore made landfall as a strong tropical storm,
Category-4 Hurricane Lili threatened the Louisiana coast on October 3,
2002. Lili was the first hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since
1999. Forecasters were concerned that Lili could be a potential disaster
for much of coastal Louisiana with 145 mile-per-hour winds and up to a
20-foot storm surge predicted. Robert Broderick, WE4B and John McHugh, KU4GY in Miami had corresponded earlier in the week with Danny Musten KD4RAA, in Raleigh to use the IRLP East Coast Reflector 921 to coordinate an IRLP-Skywarn / Hurricane net. Using the Reflector would allow all of the participating repeaters and nodes in the affected area to be linked and be heard simultaneously. "Emergency response was one of the primary reasons that we established the East Coast Reflector," said Danny. "We were excited that this new technology that links repeaters nation-wide and beyond could be activated for this purpose".
"With
this storm, we established another milestone in W4EHW's history,"
said, John McHugh, KU4GY, coordinator for Amateur Radio at the NHC.
"Using the Palmetto Radio Club repeater that was connected to
similar repeaters in Louisiana via IRLP (Internet Radio Linking
Project), we were able to collect weather reports from stations in the
affected area that do not have HF radios." StormStudy
weather specialist John Van Pelt, K4JVP, at the invitation of the
Hurricane Intercept Research Team, traveled from Raleigh to Morgan City,
LA, with hopes of reporting back first-hand via the IRLP. The
Lafayette repeater was out of range to his coastal location, but John
was able to give measured reports via patch through Raleigh IRLP node
427, which was connected to Reflector 921. WE4B stated that the
"patch reports from John, K4JVP - the hurricane specialist in
Morgan City, were very well received by the NHC in Miami". During
the Net, an occasional stray node from Australia or the UK would link to
the Reflector to start a QSO and would be immediately escorted off.
That duty fell to the hands of Jim Price, WW4M and Jack Thorpe, WA0ERX
in Raleigh, Nate Duehr, WY0X in Denver, CO and Paul Cassel VE3SY in
Petersburg Ontario Canada, who monitored the Raleigh Reflector for 24
hours to block any node that might interfere with Net communications.
Jim Price, WW4M commented that, "Because IRLP is linked worldwide,
stations from unaffected areas as far away as Ontario and Colorado were
able to respond to this emergency as net control operators, which freed
up stations in Louisiana for other matters.
If the Reflector is ever needed 24 hours per day for several days
to respond to bigger disasters, we could even bring in fresh control ops
from Australia to work the late shift when it's the middle of the night
in the U.S." Net
traffic on Reflector 921 was also monitored locally in Raleigh on the
K4JDR-KD4RAA group repeaters as well as in Wilmington. Joe Landers
KE4EUE reported from the Wakefield Virginia node/repeater that officials
from the National Weather Service and Virginia State Radio Officers were
monitoring and on standby to offer health and welfare if needed. Other
IRLP nodes from adjacent states were listening in on the Hurricane Net,
many of which were ready to offer any needed assistance. As
a bonus, folks could listen via the internet to keep up with the traffic
on Reflector 921. There were streaming audio feeds made available to the
internet from the W4ATC Student Amateur Radio Society at NC State
University and Live365 from VE3SY. With Lili receiving national
attention, many were anxious about this storm. Fortunately it was
downgraded to a Cat-2, but K4JVP reported that "over a half million
people in Louisiana were without power. Tree damage was massive. It
would have been devastating if the storm had come in as expected on
Wednesday night." Robert
Hobbs, N5ULA, EC
for East Baton Rouge Parish, offered his thanks for
all the help during the Net. "It showed a lot of the guys here
locally that it (IRLP) can and will work. Maybe now we can expand our
node coverage in more of the coastal cities that will be a big help next
time. I really want to get nodes up in Slidell and Lake Charles so that
the Amateur Stations at the NWS offices in both cities can have access.
We have our work cut out for us, but with a winning track record now I
feel it will be a little easier." In
North Carolina, the KD4RAA-K4JDR repeater group plans to soon add the
K4OBX Outer Banks and Morehead nodes to the existing N4JDW nodes in
Wilmington to aid in storm reporting and emergency preparedness along
the coast. Other states are also considering IRLP nodes for
reporting to the National Weather Service and Emergency Management.
Information or requests to use the East Coast Reflector 921 can be
emailed to: ref921@kd4raa.net IRLP
is the creation of Canadian Ham, David Cameron VE7LTD. Resources: http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/w4ehw/
http://www.irlp.net
http://www.kd4raa.net
http://www.stormstudy.com
http://w4atc.ncsu.edu |
