Looking for Seattle Earthquake Stories

N7RVN Scott Crippen writes "If you have an interesting story about your direct involvement with the Earthquake in Seattle, there are folks that want to hear about it!!



I have recently talked to some folks in the Seattle area who were extremely active in the aftermath of the earthquake in the Northwest. There are so many little stories coming in about the usefulness of ham operators across the globe that there is no way possible that they are all known. I have it on excellent authority that these stories are in demand so something may be consolidated into one big grouping.



For example, the Jail in Seattle had no phones to, from, or within the jail right after the quake. Television cable was disrupted. As a precaution, the jail was immediatly locked down and no one could get in or out. Staff attempted to use their personal cell phones........ yeah, right. Without information available, they had no clue what was going on outside the concrete walls. One staff member who always carries a radio into the jail (just in case) used it to listen to the 2 meter reports and had many staff members in a break room pleading to turn up the volume so they could hear the traffic.



One lady (non-ham) used a scanner to listen to a 2 meter frequency and heard her husband's voice and call. This quelled her anxiety about his safety. She is reportedly enrolling in the next ham class.



On HF, there was reportedly health and welfare traffic which seemed to surround a panicked woman and the status of her loved one named Fritz. After multiple attempts to get into the Seattle area and to someone with a working phone, turns out all was fine with him though he experienced one minor injury. He hurt his paw. We STILL don't know what kind of animal Fritz is.......



One area EOC did not have the Hams listed as part of "The Plan" and after all the usefullness they received from hams who "just showed up" to help, they are re-working their plan and already working on a ham station at the EOC for the new group.



One city found their new fangled 800 Mhz radio system could not talk to the County's EOC (on the same system) and relied solely on a 2meter repeater to pass traffic.



A potentially huge "I forgot about that" was corrected when hams who were pre-assigned to respond to the hospital, (the one that coordinates all the area hospitals) reminded them to turn on their 150Mhz radios so they could commence communications with a bunch of anxious folk from the other area hospitals. As a side note, the hams did this and STILL got up and running before the hospital did.



These are certainly condensed versions of some of the things that happened. If you have a few minutes to put something in email form, I will foward all to those who are requesting the stories. Please try to be specific about the details (HF, FM, packet) the cities involved, and whatever else may be of importance. Some of the stories may be used to help address potential problems in the future thousands of miles away. There was LOTS of things learned by those who experienced it. Others may benefit from what was learned. Some might get a good belly laugh too.



E-mail me at the address listed here.



Thanks and 73



Scott Crippen



n7rvn@hotmail.com"