Big Win for Hams in Silicon Valley

From the San Jose Mercury News:

When vandals downed high technology phone lines, low-tech radio came to the rescue

By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News

Within an hour of learning that phone lines were down Thursday morning in Morgan Hill, severing the 911 system, police officers were dispatched to rouse the members of the city’s emergency response team.

Jennifer Ponce, Morgan Hill’s coordinator of emergency services answered the door at 3:50 a.m.

Randy Christensen, volunteer coordinator of a city program that trains residents in emergency preparedness heard the doorbell at 5:15. a.m.

Way before coffee.

Kirstin Hofmann, Santa Clara County’s coordinator of emergency services, got the call at 5 a.m. The county activated its emergency operations center.

“Things started happening very quickly,” said Hofmann. “I live and breathe this.”

The South Bay telephone outage reportedly caused by vandals who cut fiber-optic cables, roused and brought together, as if on cue, a group of emergency responders to a man-made disaster, kicking into gear a scenario that they practice year round, never knowing when that disaster will strike.

By most accounts, response from police and fire and emergency workers was swift and smooth. And officials in Santa Clara and Monterey Counties are praising ham radio operators not only for their quick response, but also for coming through when state-of-the-art high technology failed.

Amateur radio operators, armed with their antennaed boxes — the true wireless — became the eyes and ears of police and fire on the streets. They were able to communicate with police and fire, who were using their own two-way radios.

“They were invaluable,” said Ponce of the group of ham radio operators in Morgan Hill who were among the first to respond as in most disasters. For most of the morning, the only form of communication between Gilroy and Morgan Hill was through radio.

Radio operators from Palo Alto and Mountain came to assist in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, cities most affected by the outage. “We didn’t plan for this per se,” said Christensen, who parked near a school and park with his radio for eight and half hours, vigilant for any emergencies that need to be reported to emergency services center.

“But this was great training for us for when the great quake happens.” No deaths or injuries were reported related to the outage, but Hofmann said the lesson is clear: “This is what we’re prepared to do and it’s just a good reminder to people to have a back up plan. Have a battery operated radio. That preparedness message is really, really important.”

Cmdr. David Swing of the Morgan Hill Police Department, said Thursday’s events and the community’s response underscore for him the importance of good police relations with the ommunity. When police sent a volunteer to a local Staples to make copies of a news release to distribute to the public, his credit card payment couldn’t be processed: phones were down.

Without hesitation, Swing said, the Staples manager said in effect, “Pay later.”

The city paid Friday.

In Santa Clara County, a recent focus of disaster preparedness has been similar collaboration among public, private and non-profit sectors “to make sure we’re all prepared to respond,” said Caroline Judy, the county’s logistics chief.

Last month, Judy said county workers got a first- hand look at a big black truck called NERVE, for Network Emergency Response Vehicle, an emergency communications center on wheels. NERVE was used during Hurricane Katrina.

Cisco Systems, which owns the truck, was dispatched Thursday to Morgan Hill. Beaming up to satellites, it restored telephone and Internet service to the police department. A similar vehicle from the American Red Cross was dispatched to Gilroy.

“Yesterday, all those relationships paid off,” Judy said. “It was a good case in point to tap into partnerships and get things rolling.”

Posted: 04/10/2009 06:58:55 PM PDT