Boulder County and the floods

Just thought I would post an update with what is going on up here with the disaster stuff. I was called out to the Boulder EOC early Friday AM to work net control and packet radio for the disaster comms between the evac centers and EOC. Turns out that cell comms were down in some of the mountain towns, and the best info anyone had was, for example, between Pinewood springs and Allenspark hams and the EOC.

Here is what the situation room at the EOC looked like Friday morning:
Attachment 34003Attachment 34005

Each desk is a different function, such as transportation, press, community relations, etc. There were tons of cops from all jurisdictions coming and going all day.
Here is what the BCARES radio area looks like:
Attachment 34007Attachment 34009

We were mostly using the 146.760 net for voice and a packet net for data comms - both could be really busy at times.
There are also some cameras we have on the Boulder Airport flight line - where all of the CH-47s and Blackhawks are bringing in evacuees. From there, they are bused to the evac shelters. I worked an evac shelter Saturday and Monday - lots of help there and lots of food/water, but sad to see people in this predicament.
Tomorrow, several members are going out with Red Cross to do damage assessment, using their mobile rigs. I'd like to go, but don't have the rig and antenna.
Amazing how many people they have mobilized for this!

Pretty amazing how quick they can mobilize and get into action. Depending on your staffing up there, they are making lists of people to help supplement your rosters from region 2.

Yup, think I met a few of them already

I work with a number of USAF officers, mostly junior grade. One of them said that he is part of a group of 50 volunteers who mobilized Saturday morning for SAR. They flew to Boulder ready to help but they were told FEMA was in charge and they couldn't do anything. They sat on the tarmac for 12 hours before going home. It is amazing what has been done. It is also amazing what could be done.

as a on the ground "victim" let me tell that FEMA is fucking worthless.

FEMA is there to ensure GOVERNMENTS get their money, they don't give a shit about the people

the government (at pretty much all levels) has been more of a hindrance than a help since day 1 (no warning).

Without volunteers and church's, most all of us would be fucked.

Its the locals that make a recovery, and rescue successful. If you look at the road to recovery in Oklahoma after major twisters rip thru, they handle their stuff themselves. Yeah Fema shows up and makes their presence known(they have to make it look good to get more money), but its the locals who work the radios, search for survivors, help clean up, do fund raisers, and move on. Places like New Orleans, and New England, which live on the gov't tit, they are still struggling to get back on their feet, after how many years? We either lay around and feel sorry for ourselves, or we put our boots on and help our neighbors. Luckily for some of our friends up north, we haven't laid around. Mind you, you guys survived a 1000 year flood. Nothing in the books for it to compare to. If you guys need anything, post on here or wherever appropriate, I know members on here will help.

^^^ +1. This. The volunteers neighbors, friends, and churches are doing the heavily lifting of recovery.

What do you have to say about red cross?

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Originally Posted by Wulf202

What do you have to say about red cross?

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Useless Money grabbers.

As someone who has weathered several Hurricanes in Florida I can tell you the Red Cross did nothing but use the opportunity to beg for more money. Our local Wal Mart did 10 times what the red cross did. They got water, ice and supplies to us asap.

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I just got back from spending 10 days in Fort Collins assisting with the efforts. My Guard unit conducted checkpoints and roadblocks in Larimer County. A total of 20 roadblocks at its height and only 7 roadblocks currently that we transitioned to another unit last night. Also, our unit is conducting operations in the town of Lyons, assisting the local police and the Boulder County Sheriff's office with roving patrols. I saw a lot of the water devastation and I saw a lot of assistance coming in. We were next to the heliport and I saw search and rescue teams being moved out to conduct house to house contacts in the rural areas affected by the water. Those teams were from Missouri, Nevada, California, and Colorado. They loaded up pallets of water and food supplies, MRE's and civilian versions of them to be given to those parties refusing to evacuated. I saw the choppers bring in literally thousands of evacuee's who then were given a hot meal, medical care, their pets were given medical care, they were lined up with temporary housing and enrolled in the money programs for aid relief. It is an expensive endeavor, but I was impressed with the effort.

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Originally Posted by JohnTRourke

FEMA is fucking worthless

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That pretty much covers it. I've watched them here on my street and I'm beginning to think being a FEMA employee is a rather cushy job...

Red Cross has a business model in what they do. Salvation Army works as a charity group in contrast. I would put my support with the SA, and business that help out in these times first, rather than that "certain" group. We got lucky down here with only moderate flooding. It would have been a real calamity to have the flooding up north, and down here at the same time. Maybe its time to check interest in another meeting Singlestack?

I'd be up for another meeting if we can define some useful objectives. After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net. However, the geographical dispersion seemed to nix that. Maybe a discussion on what we each have and other ways of staying in touch, perhaps using the internet to bridge the gap?

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Originally Posted by hatidua

That pretty much covers it. I've watched them here on my street and I'm beginning to think being a FEMA employee is a rather cushy job...

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I was in Estes Park when FEMA showed up, they sent US&R teams, who specialize in building searches and whatnot, those folks just didn't have a mission. They deployed to a flood with no personal flotation devices (life jackets) and are not allowed to operate in or near water without them. We had to shuttle them across 1/2" high water running over a road so they could stand around for 8 hours and watch the fire department shuttle folks out of little valley on ATVs.

The number one contributor to rescue and recovery up there were the local volunteer Fire fighters, the volunteer search and rescue teams from Larimer County and the regular citizens helping each other out.

As this is in the preparedness forum, I will say that the best advice I can give after spending 7 days on flood recovery is to have at least a month of any meds stored up, have a "bug out bag" with clothes, a bit of food and all your important papers ready to go at all times, and have a good method for transporting any pets you have (carriers for cats, muzzles and harnesses for dogs). Rolling suitcases are worthless if you need to hike out 3 miles from your house to a drivable road.

if you winterize a seasonal home, have all the stuff to do it on hand, people having to hike in and out of pinewood springs carrying antifreeze and whatnot was really tough to see.

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Originally Posted by Singlestack

I'd be up for another meeting if we can define some useful objectives. After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net. However, the geographical dispersion seemed to nix that. Maybe a discussion on what we each have and other ways of staying in touch, perhaps using the internet to bridge the gap?

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Hey have you tried to hit the 146.970 repeater in the last week? They revamped the antennas, so you may have luck hitting it again. Echolink(computer program you run on your PC that lets you connect to thousands of sites around the world) may be the easiest way for some of us. I know if I got everything configured on my end, I could talk with all of you in the metro area via that. Otherwise, the linked repeaters would be another way. I have a little more capability since the last meeting as well. If we had yards( I don't ugh), there is a way to use HF for somewhat close communications(NVIS antenna). To do that, you need a general or extra class ham license though. Though I have no first hand experience in using NVIS, I can give you or anyone else some info on it. It's a 80m-40m band proposition.

As you said, discussing what we have, and have access to would be a good idea. Even if not everyone had everything, some ways to communicate would work locally, and at least one or two people in each region would have capability to talk to another region to relay info. The flooding in your neck of the woods is a good example of the need for something like that IMO. By region, I mean C/springs region, Denver metro region, Boulder region if you are too far out to share assets, Ft Collins region, etc.

If you want to try and put a meeting together, lets do it. Can see who may have gotten their license since last march, what everyone has, and try to form a basic plan?

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Originally Posted by Singlestack

After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net.

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I'd be up for that if anyone else in range is.

Let me know when either of you guys in Boulder want to try, I see there are three echolinked repeaters there. Otherwise we can see if you can hit the 146.970 repeater now that it is fully operational again. Where there is a will, there is a way.

To run Echolink, do you need a TNC? On the 146.970 repeater, is there a 100 Hz CTCSS tone both ways (xmit and receive)?

Thnx!

I want to say the 970 doesn't transmit a tone. I ran into an issue with my Kenwood D710, if you set the squelch to tone squelch, it will not break open no matter how strong the signal is without the tone. IIRC, the 970 was one of the repeaters I had issues with and forced me to go back and change all the settings. So the 970 is probably 100hz, nothing out.

Ok, with echolink, it can work two ways. Both ways, you download the software and install it on your PC. From there you'll have to verify your call sign with them. After that you can either use a mic and speakers, or a headset directly with the computer, or if you own a kenwood that supports echolink connect the radio directly to the computer via the kenwood cables they sell and use it. It brings up a board that has different node numbers that go all over the world. You can listen into hurricane nets, all sorts of stuff. I haven't really played with it much, but I believe you can talk user to user, or in a chat room setup( I think), or user to repeater. The CRA repeater in Boulder is listed in echolink, so if I logged onto it, you would likely hear it announce my callsign. Then you would just talk to me like I was on a radio in the area.

Found this video while aimlessly surfing youtube today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=treLJc_QogQ

Been listening to the 970 machine lately, and not hearing anything. Streetman, I'd like to see if I can contact you tomorrow at, say, 9PM on the 970. Are you available? Hatidua, would be good if you can try then, as well....

Make sure you have a good view to the south. I can be handy around 9pm 2100hrs, and see if we can catch each other. 146.970, I don't think it is transmitting a tone, but it should be 100hz to get into it.

OK, I'll set it up with no tone on RCV, just XMIT

I transmitted call every minute or so for the past 10 minutes and heard nothing. Guessing the 970 is just a bit too distant for my lilipution Chinese handheld!

Were you guys able to hear the repeater at all? Had someone just try the repeater but I didn't catch his callsign.

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Originally Posted by Singlestack

I transmitted call every minute or so for the past 10 minutes and heard nothing. Guessing the 970 is just a bit too distant for my lilipution Chinese handheld!

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Guessing so. A mobile with a decent antenna may work, but I really couldn't tell you. I know I've talked to a ham in Broomfield over the summer from the parking lot on top of the peak with full signal strength from him and me. Will have to try a linked repeater or me log into your CRA repeater in boulder.

I wasn't able to hear the repeater at all, Greg. I'm going to look into installing the echolink software next.

BTW, just decided on my next radio purchase, after getting an incredible demo at the HRO in Anaheim, CA. Will be the Icom ID-51A. Pricey, but I know I want a D-Star HT with the cool D-RATS software. The amazing thing is the much less capable ID-92 isn't much less - about $65.

You guys probably have more access to Dstar uses up there than we do down here right now. I know Icom was talking about donating some gear, most likely Dstar stuff like they did for another group(jeffco ares?). Let me know if you wish to try echolink tonight, or try the cra machine.

Found a link to some NVIS info, still doing more research...
http://www.emcomm.org/projects/nvis.htm

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Originally Posted by Singlestack

BTW, just decided on my next radio purchase, after getting an incredible demo at the HRO in Anaheim, CA. Will be the Icom ID-51A. Pricey, but I know I want a D-Star HT with the cool D-RATS software. The amazing thing is the much less capable ID-92 isn't much less - about $65.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Singlestack

BTW, just decided on my next radio purchase, after getting an incredible demo at the HRO in Anaheim, CA. Will be the Icom ID-51A. Pricey, but I know I want a D-Star HT with the cool D-RATS software. The amazing thing is the much less capable ID-92 isn't much less - about $65.

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Wow, the ID-51A looks pretty amazing. I could see how the automatic position reply and recorded reply functions could be really useful in an emergency situation.

Yes, thats some of the functions that I'm looking forward to try out. My ARES group is really getting into D-Star capabilities and D-RATS http://d-rats.com/, and I want to participate. Still, $550+ is a LOT to pay for a handheld - it had better be awesome for that price.

I really do have to say the Baofeng UV-5R is a steal for $40+. Not "fancy", but combines a decent dual band receiver with a useful set of basic features. I will probably pick up a second after the ID-51.

D-star sounds great from what I've learned of it, but it does get a lot of hate by those who don't understand it. My only issue is the cost of admission into the club, and Icom is the only flavor. Granted, I've tended to be impressed by some of Icom's HF offerings, but their VHF and UHF have left me scratching my head. Mostly with their mobiles, not so much handhelds. I'll have to ask at the meeting this month about whether Icom is still following thru with their offer or not for us.