Hurricanes

I have been reading about WWNC Asheville, North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. That is an AM station on 570 KHz (5 KW DA-N) owned by iHeart Media. They have been simulcasting on all of the local iHeart signals in the area and according to WRAL-TV, have been the only source of information for people who have been cut off in the mountainous areas.

While the power is out, wired telephone service is down, cellphones and mobile data are unavailable, AM radio still gets through. Yes, FEMA has satellite phones and can work with commercial wireless providers to re-establish wireless networks and connectivity. However, it often takes them days to react and weeks to get on site.

Stations like WWNC that stay on the air during disasters are vital resources to their communities. The fact that they remain on the air requires planning and forethought. Emergency power at both the transmitter and studio is the most important and most expensive thing. After that, backup programming feeds and sources, secure shelters for personnel, food, water, and even spare clothing. Having experienced several of these events; Bill Ruck in his Radio World letter said it best, Engineers need to take care of themselves.

That means not taking excessive risks during the event, eating properly, and getting adequate sleep. Lack of sleep can lead to poor decision-making processes, making matters worse.

Sometimes transmitter sites are inaccessible or completely destroyed. Having a plan ahead of time to get some signal on the air is always a good idea. Sometimes an area is so severely impacted that there is no normalcy. Things that we take for granted are simply gone. I found the best way to deal with this is to take a step back, take stock of the situation, if you can find others who are working on disaster relief, coordinate with them, come up with a plan, then proceed carefully and be ready to adapt as the situation requires.

The next Hurricane; Milton, is taking a line towards Florida.

The Hurricane Watch Network will be active tonight at 14.325 or 7.268 MHz starting at 5 PM EDT for Amateur Radio operations and Shortwave Listeners.

WX4NHC is the Amateur Radio station for the Hurricane Warning Center. They have useful information preparedness, information gathering, and post-disaster response.

8 thoughts on “Hurricanes”

  1. The folks at WWNC and the entire iHeart Asheville cluster of stations are indeed doing a fantastic and vital job, but the Saga Asheville radio group and Blue Ridge Public Radio are also providing commendable coverage.

  2. Allen, I know many more stations and groups are working hard to provide coverage and I tip my hat to all of them.

  3. I applaud the job local radio is doing and the sacrifices they are making to keep people informed – but I wonder (and worry) how many radio receivers are still out there, and how many are battery operated?

  4. Brain, You bring up a good point. One thing I discovered a couple years ago is that battery-powered AM/FM radios are inexpensive. When we sent radios to Ukraine, I bought 120 units for about $10 each. We sent those and several 50 packs of AA batteries for around $1,500 including shipping. It might be a good idea for local emergency managers to have a small stock of battery-powered radios to distribute in cases like this.

  5. “While the power is out, wired telephone service is down, cellphones and mobile data are unavailable,…”

    Paul, down here in central Florida, *every* cellphone site has a diesel generator there at the tower site. That obviously won’t help if the glass fiber feeding it is also down, but aren’t some cell tower sites linked with microwave antennas to ‘home base’?

    I took a direct hit from Milton’s eyewall, while my power was out for about 16 hours, cell service remained on. Granted, bandwidth was drastically reduced (and speed) by everyone and their mother getting their data ‘fix’ via cellular, but it stayed somewhat ‘up’ until the neighborhood got all their power back.

    I will say one thing, that power outage made HF radio reception blissfully quiet without those many nearby sources of RFI being silenced by the blackout…

  6. Additional –

    The fact the cell towers had generators may well have been the result of the laws passed because of the 2004 hurricane season, when laws were passed requiring gas stations near major roads to have backup power. Some businesses went one better, the Publix grocery chain installed backup Caterpillar whole-store generators at EVERT store location.

    (I’m sure the motivation was the fact that corporate HQ for Publix was right in the triangle of where all 3 of that year’s storm tracked.)

  7. Thank you for your insights and sharing of information.

    One of the issues with grocery stores and backups discovered in the Houston area was separate power feeds used for many grocery stores and their “attached” gas stations. This resulted in store having power but gas station not having power.

    While having backup power is absolutely wonderful, there is maintenance required which as to be follow through with. Again in the Houston area several sites were without power due to back up failures.

    I do not yet know if there are large plug and play solutions for backup generators where a standard plug and interlock system can be installed and generators brought in and connected as needed. I am looking for this information this Winter.

    Thank you,

    Sincerely,

    Richard
    KD5URB

  8. “While having backup power is absolutely wonderful, there is maintenance required which as to be follow through with.”

    Richard, the Publix grocery chain purchased both the Caterpillar 12-cylinder diesel generators from the local ‘Cat Power’ heavy construction equipment dealer along with a maintenance contract to keep them reliable. The generators themselves are in all-weather cabinets behind a chain-link fence at the individual store locations. These are the same generators that power hospitals and emergency services.

    The company has a well-earned reputation down here for knowing their business :

    https://www.ringpower.com/

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