San Antonio Hams

Photos provided by Bob W2IK covering the operators stationed near IH-37 South and Hwy 181 exit, monitoring contra flow, plus the Floresville RV Park on Hwy 181.

Bob, W2IK – NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2, Bexar Operator Group and NMC MARS) reported from Floresville on weather conditions, traffic flow and relays information from MARS into the REACT ham system. He also acted as a MARS relay station when propagation conditions prevented communications between a few MARS stations.
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On Saturday, August 29th, there were a few of us who got up when the chickens did, to get our radios and portable antennas ready for a South Texas Hurricane Drill.    Some operators chose locations that were pre-set up and air conditioned, others like me chose to “rough it” in the great outdoors without any AC.   Fortunately for us, the weather cooperated and it didn’t storm on us, nor did it get as hot as recent days.   My van’s thermometer (sitting out there in the sun on black asphalt) got up to 102, but it wasn’t that hot inside our very shaded shelter area.  We should have brought a box fan with us, but we didn’t think about that until we were already there and set up.

Hill Country REACT Team was tasked with staffing the state rest area located on west bound IH-10 at the 619 mile marker.  To convert that description into plain English, this was the last major rest stop on IH-10 for folks coming west from Houston or the coast, prior to Seguin or even San Antonio, TX.  This rest stop has been used in previous (actual) evacuations to monitor traffic flow on the interstate, so that emergency officials (primarly in San Antonio) could be given advance notice of mass arrivals.    We only truly needed to run 2 meters VHF capability here, but we experimented with a couple of HF antennas as well.

Today, three members (Lee N5NTG, Gary K5GST, Ray KE5KHN) of our REACT Team set up as part of a much larger drill, a drill that saw at least 2 ARES groups, our REACT Team, the Bexar Operators Group, South TX Navy-Marine Corps MARS, an Army MARS station, 2 National Weather Service Offices, multiple county EOC’s both near SA and down by the coast, etc.

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In a recent posting by W2IK, the upcoming drill on Saturday, August 29th, was discussed in rather general terms.   Since that time, we’ve increased the scope of this event somewhat.    We’ve added one ARES group (Hayes / Caldwell County) to the mix, and have room for more if other groups want to  participate.

The event will only last 3 hours of radio time (11am – 2pm Saturday), compressing several days into 3 hours.  What fun!   We’ll be using local VHF freqs for operations near SA and another freq for local CC comm, plus a 40 meters net for the group, and MARS’s HF freq for their internal operations.  We’ll be using the NWS office in New Braunfels KD5UMW and Drisocoll Childrens Hospital W5DCH as net controls.

Event:  Hurricane “Albert” is expected to make landfall just north of Corpus with maximum winds at 130 mph.

• Hour 1 – Pre-Landfall – evacuation of residents in coastal cities in path of storm. Problems with evac routes and major side routes.  Status of Shelter fill rates, etc.
• Hour 2 – Landfall – Loss of power, high winds, property damage noticed, major flooding and high surf conditions.  Problems with evac routes and major side routes.  Status of Shelter fill rates, etc.
• Hour 3 – Post-Landfall – Sending in teams to evaluate damage, return residents, status of evac routes being returned to normal use, power failures in area, comm failures in area due to towers blown or power failures, etc.  Wrap up.

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Looks like all current hurricane path predictions have Hurricane Bill veering north up along the Alantic eastern seaboard of the USA, instead of west into the Gulf of Mexico.  Guess Bill learned that the ham operators in Texas were prepared to respond to his visit, and decided to go look for better hunting elsewhere…  🙂

Actually, based on the track shown on www.stormpulse.com it would seem that Bill doesn’t even want to visit the eastern portion of the USA, except perhaps for a quick brush past the state of Maine?

Hurricane Bill Advisory 22 08-20 at 4pm ET

One of my favorite tracking sites is www.stormpulse.com which lets you choose which storm to track, and can see how far away it is in miles from some city (like San Antonio or Corpus Christi, etc.).

Currently as of 08/17,  this tracking authority apparently does not envision a high chance of Hurricane Bill coming to Texas, but instead predicts that it will be heading toward the eastern US coast.  Bill turned into a Hurricane status as of the morning of 08/17.

Of course, the true official hurricane forecast site is always the National Hurricane Center from the National Weather Service.

The State EOC has issued potential timelines for response to Ana or Bill, should they threaten the Texas Coast:

Lee, W5LHC

1.Current Situation:

Tropical Storm Claudette will make landfall overnight in the western Florida Panhandle. No threat to Texas. Tropical Storm Ana has weakened to become a tropical depression. Most current models do not develop Ana once it enters the Gulf.

Tropical Storm Bill appears to be destined to become a major hurricane.

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Later this month on August 29th, the combined talents of Navy-Marine Corps MARS, REACT, National Weather Service, Bexar Operators Group and others will work together during a hurricane drill. Information will be passed using both MARS EEI and standard text messaging when a “hurricane” landfalls on an area just north of Corpus Christi. We will also have coastal hospitals and Skywarn personnel working the event.  The drill is scheduled for the morning of Saturday, August 29th.

This will be a test of various MOUs and our ability to communicate with each other in case a real weather event should erupt.

This is NOT just some “table top” drill, as stations will actually deploy along the coast and along evacuation routes from both Houston and Corpus Christi. In addition, there will also be stations up and running at two National Weather Service offices (New Braunfels & Corpus Christi).  And now it looks like “someone invited” Tropical Storm Bill to come help make our drill be a bit more realistic. 🙂

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The Bexar Operators Group (W5BOG) is in the final stages of acquiring a 1994 Chevy Van/Bus for their use as a general communications and/or emergency communications vehicle. This 18 passenger bus will be converted into a go-anywhere communications van which will also be used for casual outings and “in the field” communications experiments. This “green” bus runs on propane. It will be fitted with complete VHF and HF  operating areas, propane stove, sleeping accommodations and “bathroom”. Special antennas will be used and a portable generator and solar panels will supply energy.    It is hoped to have the vehicle “up and ready” in a few weeks.

We received the following report from Shane NS5D covering one of the more important seminars held at this year’s Austin Summerfest, the ARES meeting with a briefing about Texas’ new disaster recovery / response teams.  

Here is Shane’s report… 
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Bexar County ARES holds its monthly meetings on the 1st Tuesday of the month, and rotates the location between the American Red Cross HQ (Houston St & Commerce St), and the SA City EOC down at Brooks City Base.   This month, about 18 members of the local ARES group met in the American Red Cross HQ and later toured the radio room. One member (Shane NS5D) was out supporting a brush fire that SAFD had rolled out to support with their command bus, and another member ( Ray AE5HN) responded to a Red Cross support call and had to leave the meeting early.

Focus for tonight’s meeting, led by Bexar County ARES EC David K5OLE, was the subject of Hurricane Preparedness, how much advance time to expect, how accurate of a guess re landfall center to expect, when to expect to be deployed back down on the coast for the recovery phase. The second focus was a planned antenna party for the morning of August 29th to take down and repair the dipole antennas at the Red Cross, then reinstall them on the roof.  Contact any ARES AEC for details if you want to volunteer to help.

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