Issue 29: More Ham Heroes - From 1937's Ohio Valley Flood

The current issue of Trials and Errors features radio communications in an emergency. In what may shed some light on how it might work in tomorrow's SHTF scenario, W7DGJ shows how ham operators managed to become the glue that held radio together one of the USA's largest tragedies in loss of life and property. The article concludes with an ARRL editorial that begs to be read over and over again. See this link for the article. Please add your comments or suggestions here!

 

Who wrote the editorial?

73 de Jim N2EY

 

Hi Jim, It was Kenneth B. Warner, ARRL, W1EH. Ken was a member of the Board of Directors of the ARRL at the time.

Dave

 

A couple of things strike me about the editorial.

First the subject of regimentation of amateurs came up, regimentation of amateurs by government, the regimentation of response to emergency situations.

The editorial rightly states that emergencies are totally unpredictable. And, that's true.... Very obviously so. Indeed, in my opinion that's what makes them emergencies. Thereby, making a regimented response worse than useless in many if not most cases.

At the risk of sounding political, emergency planning by government is essentially impossible, thereby. Mind you, I'm not talking about one government or another, I'm talking about any government. Any government entity, any government individual attempting to plan such things except in the broadest of terms is destined for failure. And yet, they keep trying to do precisely that, in an apparent desire to maintain the power of control in their hands not in those of the volunteers. You know, the ones that are actually doing the work.

I suggest that the writings about this incident prove one thing that many people will wish they don't: training & regimentation is neither possible nor desirable in emergency situations and the people that are the most effective in those situations generally are simply doing what they can do, not necessarily what pre-planning by authorities, and regimentation has brought them to.

I suggest that a look at the volunteer fire companies around the country of 50 years ago versus what we have now, while perhaps not directly comparable, is instructive.

50 years ago most areas of the country had fire companies that were staffed by people who are completely volunteer. These days, as time has gone on fire companies have become professional organizations represented by unions in many cases.

The volunteer .... And with it, alas, the spirit of volunteerism, has essentially been erased under the weight of the attitude of "let the professionals do it".

As a result of this progression, many fire companies are left wanting for staff.

One could certainly argue that we are better protected by such a shift, at least in the more heavily populated areas because of the training and regimentation. (Well, at least government believes so...) But there are so many holes in those lines as to make that argument at least a bit more difficult.

Is this where amateur radio is headed as regards emergency response? And this brings us to our second point:

The league has been using emergency response ability as a lever, (one of several) as a means of justifying our operating privileges or frequencies and so on.

The negative effect on amateur radio of downplaying our emergency role is obvious and quite probably devastating, both from the standpoint of "let the professionals do it, it's not my job". (see also, "ham radio is not an emergency service", and the usual jibes about the "yellow jacket crowd".)

And thus needful things not getting done in a timely fashion in an emergency situation...

And also, from the standpoint of being able to maintain those operating privileges. Governments want some return for their investments. That's simply how things are these days. They need to know when time to regulate spectrum comes along, when questions of local zoning boards regulating antenna structures, of our ability and willingness to throw a shoulder where needed. Down playing that role, as I have seen happen so often here on the Zed, runs directly counter to that purpose.

And there, I've run longer than I intended. But I expect to have given some fodder for discussion.

Have at it

/De K2ENF

 

Great stuff, Eric. Your comments should, as you say, provide some fodder for others if we can get them over from the general Zed forums for a few minutes. I like your thoughts on this. You're so right about emergencies . . . it's not something to regiment, it's not something you can put under the wing of one agency or another. Each volunteer, every amateur, is going to pick up in such a scenario and act in a way that best protects their family and their neighbors. That's not going to change, despite all the planning in the world.

I love this line from that ARRL editorial, "The very greatness of our performance early this year now attracts many agencies who would like to commandeer, direct us, and so on. Let them understand that this service comes from us, of our own volition as free agents. We shall want to help them all as much as we can, but of our own accord and not by direction."

Dave, W7DGJ

 

As we have thousands of readers of this column located in countries outside of the USA, I have tried to find examples of ham heroism from other emergency situations (outside the States) but it has been difficult. Perhaps we can learn from the activities of hams in global emergency situations, and I hope that readers from outside the USA can offer suggestions that I can research and write about in the future. Thanks for posting them in this discussion. Dave, W7DGJ

 

As I said at my place, the message sent in that paragraph is the very essence of Americanism. The message is that it is the individuals, not the government that makes us great. Too often, those in government have either neglected or actively worked against that spirit and sought to micromanage volunteers, and as the article says, regiment them.

Think, now... Does anyone suppose that editorial could have been written by the League today, much less be lauded by it's members?

Dave, we've lost something in our society.... something precious... and by extension, in the Ham radio community as well, since that editorial from 1937 was published. And the discussions I've seen elsewhere on the topic of e ham radio emergency response over the last few years, exemplify that loss.

 

What it all boils down to is people stepping up to the plate and helping out where they can in a time of emergency. THE September eleventh is a good example from our time. People helped people. They did what they could. I was just seven miles from ground zero building a radio studio. I ended up taking a train and bus home when we were done. I lamented that I hadn't had the opportunity to help someone. That changed at the bus terminal. A lady saw me calling my wife to pick me up and asked if she could use my phone to call her brother to pick her up. It turned out that she lived in the next town from me which was about an hour drive from the bus station. I said sure but tell him to pick her up at my house. We took her home to my place and her brother was waiting there for her. Opportunities to help turn up in strange ways sometimes. Now any advance planning wouldn't have included that scenario. You have to run with the emergency as it develops. Some pre planning is helpful but unfortunately emergencies don't follow a script. There is too much bureaucracy in emergency planning nowadays. I'm afraid it's even gotten into amateur radio emergency groups. We are able to communicate in emergencies. Some of us still know how to handle traffic efficiently. We're available. All we need to know is who in the organization we are assisting is authorized to originate traffic. We do our job and they do theirs. We don't need to know how their organization operates to efficiently pass on the messages. In addition, many operators find themselves in strategic locations and are able to pass on condition reports first hand. So, why not work together and not work against each other. This article really brings that to the front.

 

Since the form of "improvised public service" common in the US usually was expressly prohibited for amateurs in European countries, actual amateur radio participation in emergencies has been quite uncommon.

However, some noted examples of participation were during the 1953 floods in England and the Low Countries, and in the 1963 Skopje earthquake.

But there were other forms of amateur radio involvement primarily in WW2 that stood out.

Good examples were:

• The "Voluntary Interceptor" organisation which provided Bletchley Park with intercepted Axis radio messages
• The Norwegian, Danish and Dutch resistance movements had their communications organised by radio amateurs, and many of them paid with their lives

In my native Sweden, which managed to stay out of the war, radio amateurs became enrolled in Army, Air Force and Navy communications, first on a limited scale, but after the events of April 9 1940, almost every of the 400 pre-war radio amateurs became assigned to radio related duties.

As military procedures and amateur radio procedures at the time were quite similar, the majority of amateurs were "young men in their prime" and usually belonging to the educated classes of society, they often got positions of responsibility.

This made a good impression on the regulators, who encouraged post-war amateur radio, but also prescribed more difficult exams and selection processes for prospective post-war amateurs in order to make them better useable in the next war. Similar programmes were enacted in other European countries.

In Norway some radio amateurs are involved today with Civil Defense and Mountain Rescue activities.

Having worked a considerable part of my professional life with "contingency communications",
I have learned one thing, that emergencies do not follow any predictable patterns, so it is a quite good practice to apply the time-proven rule of "expecting the unexpected".

Also, the immortal words of 19-th century Field Marshall Count Helmuth von Moltke should be
considered:



(loose translation:
"No war-plan, regardless of how well prepared, survives the first contact with the enemy")

73/Karl-Arne

 

Thank you Karl-Arne. Your comments are always great . . . I'll check out the examples you provided above. Your comment about "prepare the unexpected" reminds me of the present day situation in Israel, where for some reason, intelligence missed this operation while in planning. Dave

 

I think this response misses one very important aspect of emergency communications. While amateur radio emergency communications can be an advantage because of its widespread volunteer nature, it can not necessarily be relied on because of this. Communication networks specifically constructed for this purpose, staffed by trained personnel, and maintained by professional engineers, for example, such as those for first responders are expected to be absolutely available in an emergency and have been designed to be operable with fault tolerance even under severe distress. ARES/RACES does coordinate with federal, state, and local authorities, and does take direction from them. Amateur radio emergency communications, especially since 1937 then this was written, definitely can do a better job in coordination with other agencies, and complements these other networks. While the author was rightly concerned about amateurs being compelled to cooperate, cooperation is still going to produce the best response to disasters. So I think it is important to understand the standpoint of first responders to make the case that amateur radio operators can contribute to a better overall emergency response.

73,
Dan
KW4TI

 

Fine to cooperate, not so fine to be taken over by another agency, relegated to the bottom rung as it were. That's what they feared with the FCC investigation that was ongoing at the time (1937). There were agencies trying to "commandeer" the amateurs. That would be like herding cats. Dave

 

The radio amateurs of "yesteryear" were more easily handled, as amateur radio and professional/military radio were quite conceptually similar. Communications doctrines
commonly used in amateur radio could be applied in professional work and vice versa.

All contingency and emergency communications are crucially dependent on procedures.
Yesteryear, the procedures were built into the system and an offical in charge wrote a radiogram blank and handed it to a signalman who processed the message according to procedures.
In the "far end" the message was delivered to another official after an often quite substantial delay. This worked as long as the real-time performance required was quite limited, but today's emergency coordination works in real-time, and decision-makers expect to be in contact with subordinates and peers without any intermediaries.

I worked for decades with design and operation of maritime and aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centres, and early understood that it is the flexibility and real-time aspects of their operations that become keys to good performance in critical circumstances.

Modern contingency and emergency communication systems are designed for real-time performance and also have a very high fault-tolerance. In theory, the distributed and voluntary nature of amateur radio could be an asset, but it is impractical for a responsible agency to rely on communications resources whose actual availability and performance levels largely are unknown. Instead, they invest in own infrastructure and extensive training of all involved persons.

There is a Swedish "prepper" with Home Guard communications background who has addressed the subject in several YouTube videos, and has come to the conclusion that today's radio amateur is good for making "radio checks" but for nothing else.

Also, the view of amateur radio in the eyes of emergency management have changed, and not to the better. If you say "amateur radio emergency communications" to an European offical, these mental pictures come up to them:



and



"Herding cats" is otherwise a quite apt description of trying to use especially modern radio amateurs in any organised efforts.

It has been noted over and over how difficult it has become to "organise individualists" which incidentally was the subject of an editorial in the Danish society journal OZ about 20 years ago.

The general ideas of "commandeering radio amateurs" have not been entirely absent, and reached a peak in Europe during the Cold War. Some national societies formed "defence sections" in order to use amateur radio for (para)military purposes. Since use of amateur radio frequencies for such express purposes usually was prohibited, other bands became used for these activities, but the staffing of such sections was initially recruited from the societies, usually from amateurs with signals officer or other qualified backgrounds, which were quite common then.

73/Karl-Arne

 

It strikes me that what you are talking about here is not so much usefulness of amateur radio in emergency situations, but rather the perception and knee-jerk reaction of government officials to it.

 

My views are founded in actual experience.

Emergency or "first responder" communications today are built on procedures
and "communications doctrines" to an unprecedented extent, and to participate you need to conform closely to standards, requirements and protocol.

When amateur radio communications still was a "product" that was conceptually similar to what emergency services used, it was possible to "sell" it as a product and also adapt it to requirements.
However, amateur radio has not changed much procedure-wise, we still exchange signal reports together with very little other information, but the procedures used in actual emergency communications have changed significantly. Gone are the "signalmen" and the real-time aspect has become crucial for successful operations.

Further, current operational doctrines require high and consistent quality of both equipment, networks and crew. Relying on improvised resources that a mission coordinator does not know whether they are available or what quality they have, would at best be regarded as incompetent or irresponsible.

Numerous times have "amateur radio emergency corps" been suggested or even tried in Europe, but current experience has shown that they cannot live up to requirements, which has been caused by both the ageing demographics, diluted exam standards and lack of proper training.

Here, the upper age limit for conscript service is 47 years of age, and less than 10% of the current
amateur population currently fall in this age group. This implies that a quite large amount of the amateur population would be among the groups requiring assistance than be able to provide assistance, which was shown in practice during the floods in Germany and Belgium in 2021.

When you offer a "product" on a "market without demand" the quality of this product in some sense becomes moot, but if it deteriorates too much, it becomes totally "unsellable".

A former colleague had been a technical officer in the Amphibious Corps and also a troop radio communications instructor. He considered radio amateurs to be among the worst performers in actual operations, mostly due to being "know-it-alls" and having difficulties to follow instructions.

73/Karl-Arne