Ham radios can be lifeline in emergency

By Kelly Weaver-Hayes

Daily Times Correspondent

What happens when cell phone operating facilities are damaged and do not work during an emergency?

What if there is no power going out to hundreds, even thousands, of houses and most roads are impassible?

That was the story when Hurricane Katrina hit our southern neighbors two years ago.
That was the story for the eastern third of North America during the super storm of 1993.

Some sources are betting on a blizzard this winter, citing the summer drought and high temperatures this year as a similar weather pattern to that preceding the blizzard of 1993.

The need for reliable communication is always at the heart of getting help during an emergency.

When all else fails, there’s amateur radio — that is the motto of the National Association of Amateur Radio. The club serving Maryville and Alcoa recently celebrated its 60th anniversary of providing such service to the community.

Long-time member and Trustee Carol Peabody, of the Smoky Mountain Amateur Radio Club (SMARC), said he went out in the 1993 blizzard with rescuers, using his radio equipment to communicate with people stranded by the storm.

“The local automobile dealers lent out their four-wheel drive vehicles to the Red Cross to rescue people who were stranded,” Peabody said. “The Red Cross set up its headquarters on Church Avenue, in what used to be the old library.

“I went out with a driver and got people and took them to a shelter at Montvale Station, Maryville Middle School, or the rescue station.”

Emergency workers also took supplies to people who were sick, or who had no food or heat. Land lines were still working, but cell phones were out, so the mobile radios were the only way to communicate once you were on the road.

And just like it was in 1993, there are groups of people all over this country and the world, putting thousands of their own dollars into a system of communication that the Red Cross and National Guard rely upon during emergencies like the aftermath of Katrina

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