Dolly came, Dolly went

In my last blog I wrote of being ready to do community service as a Ham. I was all prepared and waiting. Then... Well, while it did damage a lot of property and drive some folks from their homes. It was not the storm of the century, and the local Hams were not called to duty.

My brother lives in the Rio Grande Valley and had to endure many hours of storm wall. His location was just on the edge of the eye and it never came across his place. He was just inside all the top winds and rain. Even so, he suffered only a few lost shingles and water up into his yard. The power went off and he and his family had no power for 30 hours. Others in the area are still without power or ice. Ice has become the prime commodity, more valuable than money itself. He has suffered through several hurricanes and was not too concerned with this one, but at the last moment decided to get some supplies (food, batteries, etc). Now, its a little know fact, but when stocking up on food, some items are an absolute must. He got several cans of Spam/Treat, potted meat, and jerky. These are all survival foods for these instances. You make up a bunch of sandwiches with the potted meat, wrap them and place them in the back of the fridge. There, they will keep very well even if the power goes off. In fact, they'll keep so well that if you forget a few remaining sandwiches, they will be edible at least six months after.

My sister-in-law and father-in-law are there in the Valley also. He lost his wife a week before the hurricane to cancer and sister-in-law was down from "The Metroplex" to stay with him for a couple of days. She was supposed to fly home the day the hurricane hit. She checked today with the airline, but no flights yet. The local runways there have standing water and planes can't come or go. Maybe by Monday she'll get out. She has missed a couple of days work already and really can't go too long. Father-in-law lives out in the country so his getting power back may be way down on the list for the power company. They were out trying to find ice today with no luck. He takes insulin and needs to keep the med cool. He's in the same boat as many others in the Valley. Diabetes is high in the population down there. But, things will get better with time. The Valley can go another five or six years without a hurricane, or forever as far as the folks down there are concerned. It did bring us (folks in the San Antonio area) beneficial rains. We're still down about 6 inches for the year. Came close to breaking the drought, but not quite.

I seem to be rambling on about all this, so maybe now is a good time to stop. C U later.

._._.

Community Service

With hurricane Dolly churning along the coast and just now going ashore (07-23-08, 17:01UTC), I'm monitoring the local Emergency Coordinator radio frequency. The local EOC has a complete Amateur Radio station and it's being manned by volunteer Hams. The Hams activated the station early this morning and asked for other Hams to "sign in." At this time we are all on stand-by waiting word of how much involvement the San Antonio/Bexar Co. area will have. It depends on how much damage and recovery is needed as the hurricane goes further in land and spends it's self over the semi-desert of West Texas and Mexico. Since the hurricane never got to a Cat-3, our services may not be needed.

The services Hams provide in these situations is having Hams located at evacuation centers and hospitals to help pass information in and out of the EOC, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other groups supporting evacuees. Hams also stand-by at other key facilities like police and sheriffs' departments to assist if those departments' communications fail. That doesn't happen often, but Katrina showed everyone just how fragile emergency responders systems can be.

I've been monitoring all morning - from about 11:30UTC - and will continue until bed time this evening. Tomorrow may bring rain and thunder storms and maybe some evacuees from the Rio Grande Valley. Many folks down there live in sub-standard housing and it doesn't take much to put them on the street. If there is a lot of damage to the Valley, the local agencies there may have folks transported to us. So, I'll be listening closely for the next couple of day. If the call up comes, I'll go and do whatever is needed in the Ham-ish way.