Ham Operations and the Fenton Tornado
Submitted by KD8AYL on Tue, 2007-08-28 15:37.
Flint Michigan, 5:15 PM the National Weather Service has issued a sever thunderstorm warning for Genesee County. AT 5:06 PM EDT. National Weather Service Doppler Radar “indicated a severe thunderstorm capable of producing damaging” -and so the announcement went. Little did we know that this particular storm would be the birth place for two tornados in the Mid Michigan area causing severe damage to several towns.
The greatest damage occurred in the City of Fenton Michigan located just south of the City of Flint. The National weather service confirmed that an F-2 Tornado had touched down and torn a path 26 miles long and up to ½ mile wide through Livingston, Oakland, Genesee and Lapeer County.
Amateur Radio operators (often called “Ham Radio”) were called out earlier in the day for the severe thunderstorm watch. As the storm moved into Genesee County it was preceded with such heavy rain that visibility dropped to zero at several points. Reports came in of funnel cloud sightings in the western part of the county but could not be confirmed. The National Weather Service issued a Tornado warning based on confirmed sightings in the adjacent counties to the west and their read on Doppler radar.
As spotters continued to watch the storm, one of several Amateur Radio operators aiding the weather service, N8VDS Randy Bond, spotted the funnel and reported it to the National Weather Service by using his ham radio. The Tornado was headed right for the Fenton area. This was confirmed by another ham radio operator, W8FSM Fred Moses Jr. Moments later the Genesee County 911 Central dispatch center received a call that the roof on the brand new Tractor Supply Company store in Fenton had caved in. The Tornado had touched down.
Genesee County 911 called out the fire departments and activated Fire Coordination Plan. However, because the Ham Radio spotters have an agreement with the Fire Departments of Genesee County to provide supplemental communications for them, their job just doubled. They were providing communications with both the SKYWARN net as well as a Fire Coordination net. At first this did not seem to be too difficult since it had happened before in minor incidents. But this time it was not “minor.”
As Fire Departments started to move toward the building collapse in Fenton, Hams Radio people were already on the scene. N8VDS, Randy Bond and KB8RVP Mike Schafer had shifted gears from a weather spotter to Fire coordination operators. At the request of the Fire Chief at the Scene, Bond went to the Fenton City Fire Station and, using ham radio, assisted their dispatch center. The storm had damaged their radio fire communications tower, so Bond and Shafer started working dispatch for them using their Ham radios until they were able to resume normal fire communications.
Ham operator KD8AYL Jerry Baker was next to arrive on scene at the collapsed building and met with the Incident Commander. He was assigned and the task to set up radio communications with more Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteers in the Flint region.
As more reports of damage came in, the Fenton City and Township Fire Department became overloaded and their crippled communications tower did not help. The request went out to get more Hams to the area for emergency communications. N8HXQ Greg Ybarra, the ARES Emergency Coordinator for Genesee County coordinated the response during this incident and quickly realized that he was going to need more help to meet the critical needs of the community. He put out a call for help to District 3 Emergency Coordinator WA8OGJ Greg Allinger. Who contacted other ARES units in the state. Amateur Radio operators from 9 counties responded to the Fenton area to help.
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Immediately after the storm, the evaluation of damaged started. Jerry Baker was reassigned to a relief shelter to aid the Red Cross. What would normally have been a pleasant drive of less then 10 minutes took almost an hour Because trees and power lines were down everywhere. Trees as much as 36 inches in diameter and over 100 years old had been ripped out of the ground by the storm. Regular electric power was out and the damage reports just never seemed to end.
The Genesee County Office of Emergency Management activated their Mobile Command unit which has an Amateur Radio station as well as radios for all public service organization in it. The City set up a command post in the parking lot of the Fenton City Fire Department and began operations from there. Michigan State Police responded to the area and instituted an 8:00 PM curfew for everyone. State and local police set up road blocks. Access was restricted to Police, Fire, National Guard, Red Cross, Salvation Army or ARES.
Amateur Radio Emergency Service volunteers worked with all aspects of the incident. Damage reports and assessments continued until 1:30 AM Saturday morning when the incident commander determined everyone should break until 5:30 AM to get some rest.
The following morning presented a dilemma for the Hams. They were being asked to continue assisting with communications in the clean up of the tornado and they also needed to take care of a prior commitment to the “Crim.” The Crim Festival of Races was being held that day and ARES supplies the communications and Amateur Radio Television for the Race. “The Crim,” as it is known locally, is not just a World Class Marathon but a festival of races that appeals to just about anyone from the World Class Runners to little tikes that enjoy the Teddy Bear trot. Each year ARES volunteers served in the Med Tent, Command Center, Start, and Finish Line and up to 120 positions through out the course.
In the tradition of Amateur Radio, the ham volunteers found ways to cover both activities. The race went on with hams manning as many stations as possible and supplying Amateur Television pictures to the command center, med tent, County 911 and City 911 Dispatch. Those not working the Crim (after only a couple of hours sleep) were back at the clean up efforts in Fenton.
The Clean up efforts in Fenton began again at 5:30 AM with ham radio operators joining with Fire Department members and local utility crews into 8 task force units that went throughout the city, cleaning up the fallen trees and down power lines. Clean up efforts continued all day Saturday until 8:00 PM when most of the Hams were able to be released from service. By then, the great majority of roads through out the City of Fenton and immediate neighborhoods had been cleared by the team efforts of Hams, Power company workers and the fire department personnel.
One of the informal mottos of Amateur Radio is “Semper Gumby!” – always flexible. The flexibility of the Amateur Radio volunteers, using their own equipment and funds, allowed them to respond to the call beginning with a SKYWARN operation, then changing to a Fire Coordination activity, to 911 coverage, then damage assessment and finally to a clean up operation.
As I write this I am sure that I have missed many names and call signs. It was not intentional and I wish to thank all of those that assisted with this mass effort to help put the city of Fenton back together. I have had reports that the residents of Fenton were more than impressed with the speed and team work which was put forth by all members of the team in this operation.
Jerry Baker
KD8AYL
Secretary/PIO
Genesee County Amateur Radio Emergency Service Inc
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