TO: ALL WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
ALL NON-WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATERUS
FROM: KEN HARRIS WA8LLM
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS INCORPORATED
WOOD COUNTY BULLETIN NR 12.27 DATE: July 1, 2012
SUBJECT : WERE YOU READY FOR THIS ONE?
How many of you were ready for the storm that went through the area on Friday, June 29th? This is just a sample of what could happen if a major storm, that would do more destruction. Did you have a way to keep your freezers and refrigerators powered up?
Did you power up your emergency communications when your power went off to coordinate the damage that was done. Was your vehicle's tank full of fuel? How much gasoline did you have in storage for your generator and vehicle before the storm hit?
I heard several comments from people saying, they weren't as ready as they thought they were. When the wind starts to blow hard, you can bet there will be trees coming down. Guess where most of those trees are going fall? They are going to fall right onto the power lines, and off goes the electricity.
If you live in a rural area, there's a good chance that your telephone service is provided by a remote cabinet that has only batteries to keep the service going until the power comes back on. This is fine as long as the power outage doesn't last over eight hours, and the batteries are in good shape. The batteries in the remote cabinets are only good for eight to ten hours. After the batteries goes dead, your telephone will also go.
For those who rely on cellular telephone service you are in the same boat. Most cellular tower sites are not equipped with back-up generators, so the life of their batteries are also eight to ten hours.
Make some notes right now as to what you need, or needed, to get back to some kind of normal life when the power goes off. If you think that it wouldn't' happen again for a long time, you may be wrong. This could happen again tomorrow.
Ken Harris WA8LLM
WCEC
Wood County WV