{"id":2786,"date":"2009-08-29T23:23:29","date_gmt":"2009-08-30T05:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/?p=2786"},"modified":"2009-08-30T07:23:53","modified_gmt":"2009-08-30T13:23:53","slug":"south-tx-hurricane-drill-photos-by-n5ntg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/?p=2786","title":{"rendered":"South TX Hurricane Drill – Photos by N5NTG"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Fortunately for us, the weather cooperated and it didn’t storm on us, nor did it get as hot as recent days.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We should have brought a box fan with us, but we didn’t think about that until we were already there and set up.<\/p>\n

Hill Country REACT Team was tasked with\u00a0staffing the state rest area located on west bound IH-10 at the 619 mile marker.<\/strong>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We only truly needed to run 2 meters VHF capability here, but we experimented with a couple of HF antennas as well.<\/p>\n

Today,\u00a0three members (Lee N5NTG, Gary K5GST, Ray KE5KHN) of our REACT Team set up<\/strong> as part of a\u00a0much larger drill, a drill that saw at least 2 ARES groups, our REACT Team,\u00a0the Bexar Operators Group,\u00a0South TX Navy-Marine\u00a0Corps MARS, an Army MARS station, 2 National Weather Service Offices, multiple county EOC’s both near SA and down by the coast, etc.<\/p>\n

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Two\u00a0additional REACT members (Wade W5ERX, Louis K1STX) we<\/strong>re at the National Weather Service in New Braufels, while another REACT member (Joe W4CTH) wore multiple hats by running the EOC in Seguin.<\/strong>\u00a0 Joe is also a member of Guadalupe Co ARES and the sponsoring club, Chaparral ARC.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

This drill was a shining example of multi-agency \/ group cooperation, with nary a complaint heard on the radio all day.\u00a0 We didn’t even experience any radio interference on the local 2 meter or HF nets either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A full detailed multi-agency report will be posted later.\u00a0 This posting is to share some of the photos that I took during this event.\u00a0 More photos and possibly short videos will follow:<\/p>\n\n\t\t