Hurricane Lili 2002
W4EHW Uses IRLP for first time

National Hurricane Center uses IRLP / Raleigh Reflector 921
for Skywarn / Hurricane Lili Net    October 3, 2002

Just seven days after Isidore made landfall as a strong tropical storm, Category-4 Hurricane Lili threatened the Louisiana coast on October 3, 2002. Lili was the first hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since 1999. Forecasters were concerned that Lili could be a potential disaster for much of coastal Louisiana with 145 mile-per-hour winds and up to a 20-foot storm surge predicted.

Robert Broderick, WE4B and John McHugh, KU4GY in Miami had corresponded earlier in the week with Danny Musten KD4RAA, in Raleigh to use the IRLP East Coast Reflector 921 to coordinate an IRLP-Skywarn / Hurricane net.  Using the Reflector would allow all of the participating repeaters and nodes in the affected area to be linked and be heard simultaneously. "Emergency response was one of the primary reasons that we established the East Coast Reflector," said Danny.  "We were excited that this new technology that links repeaters nation-wide and beyond could be activated for this purpose".

Max Mayfield, Director  The National Hurricane
Center with
Julio Ripoll WD4R
&
John McHugh KU4GY (center)


W4EHW Station

Amateurs operating the W4EHW station at the National Hurricane Center in Miami began receiving reports as Hurricane Lili approached the Louisiana coast. Hams operating through IRLP nodes in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Abbeville and Greenwell Springs linked to the East Coast Reflector.  Bob Broderick, WE4B in Miami acted as net control for the IRLP-Skywarn net and liaison to the Hurricane Center. Officials even reported in with their HT's from the Baton Rouge Red Cross as well as from the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness.

"With this storm, we established another milestone in W4EHW's history," said, John McHugh, KU4GY, coordinator for Amateur Radio at the NHC. "Using the Palmetto Radio Club repeater that was connected to similar repeaters in Louisiana via IRLP (Internet Radio Linking Project), we were able to collect weather reports from stations in the affected area that do not have HF radios."

StormStudy weather specialist John Van Pelt, K4JVP, traveled from Raleigh to Morgan City, LA, with hopes of reporting back first-hand via the IRLP.  The Lafayette repeater was out of range to his coastal location, but John was able to give measured reports via patch through Raleigh IRLP node 427, which was connected to Reflector 921. WE4B stated that the "patch reports from John, K4JVP - the hurricane specialist in Morgan City, were very well received by the NHC in Miami".

During the Net, an occasional stray node from Australia or the UK would link to the Reflector to start a QSO and would be immediately escorted off.  That duty fell to the hands of Jim Price, WW4M and Jack Thorpe, WA0ERX in Raleigh, Nate Duehr, WY0X in Denver, CO and Paul Cassel VE3SY in Petersburg Ontario Canada, who monitored the Raleigh Reflector for 24 hours to block any node that might interfere with Net communications. Jim Price, WW4M commented that, "Because IRLP is linked worldwide, stations from unaffected areas as far away as Ontario and Colorado were able to respond to this emergency as net control operators, which freed up stations in Louisiana for other matters.  If the Reflector is ever needed 24 hours per day for several days to respond to bigger disasters, we could even bring in fresh control ops from Australia to work the late shift when it's the middle of the night in the U.S."

Net traffic on Reflector 921 was also monitored locally in Raleigh on the K4JDR-KD4RAA group repeaters as well as in Wilmington. Joe Landers KE4EUE reported from the Wakefield Virginia node/repeater that officials from the National Weather Service and Virginia State Radio Officers were monitoring and on standby to offer health and welfare if needed. Other IRLP nodes from adjacent states were listening in on the Hurricane Net, many of which were ready to offer any needed assistance.

As a bonus, folks could listen via the internet to keep up with the traffic on Reflector 921. There were streaming audio feeds made available to the internet from the W4ATC Student Amateur Radio Society at NC State University and Live365 from VE3SY. With Lili receiving national attention, many were anxious about this storm. Fortunately it was downgraded to a Cat-2, but K4JVP reported that "over a half million people in Louisiana were without power. Tree damage was massive. It would have been devastating if the storm had come in as expected on Wednesday night."

Robert Hobbs, N5ULA, EC for East Baton Rouge Parish, offered his thanks for all the help during the Net. "It showed a lot of the guys here locally that it (IRLP) can and will work. Maybe now we can expand our node coverage in more of the coastal cities that will be a big help next time. I really want to get nodes up in Slidell and Lake Charles so that the Amateur Stations at the NWS offices in both cities can have access. We have our work cut out for us, but with a winning track record now I feel it will be a little easier."

In North Carolina, the KD4RAA-K4JDR repeater group plans to soon add the K4OBX Outer Banks and Morehead nodes to the existing N4JDW nodes in Wilmington to aid in storm reporting and emergency preparedness along the coast.  Other states are also considering IRLP nodes for reporting to the National Weather Service and Emergency Management. Information or requests to use the East Coast Reflector 921 can be emailed to:

IRLP is the creation of Canadian Ham, David Cameron VE7LTD.

Resources:

http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/w4ehw/
W4EHW at the National Hurricane Center

http://www.irlp.net/
Internet Radio Linking Project

http://www.kd4raa.net/
IRLP Reflector 921

http://www.stormstudy.com/
K4JVP's weather education project

http://w4atc.ncsu.edu/
W4ATC -NC State Student club - skywarn streaming audio