EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS -When disasters happen

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS 
-When disasters happen

The last disasters happened in:

Peru:  Coastal El Niño January - April 2017. Intense rains, mudslides and floodings
Mexico:  Big earthquakes September 2017
USA, Caribean islands, Mexico: 2017 Severe Hurricanes Season

Turned to be challenging for the emergency communications. For each case we have adopted and adapted the resources available to face the need to support the flow of key information to facilitate the access of assistance to the people in need of help.

During the Coastal El Niño between January - April 2017 in Peru, intense rains, mudslides and floodings affected severely almost the whole country. The size of the disaster overwhelmed the response capacity of the Peruvian government. The magnitude of the damages and number of people affected trigered an unexpected aid and social solidarity outburst.

Unidad 4x4 de Ayuda supported the response efforts in the following way:

1. Monitoring, search and investigation of the communications about disaster events happening in remote, distant, isolated locations where emergency response units were not available.
2. Identification of the affected locations on the maps 
3. Verification of the disaster and rsulting affected people by information crossing from different sources: remote radio-communication stations HF and via Echolink -if available, internet, TV, news, local radio broadcast, etc.
4. Depending on the location and situation the protocol followed was:
 a. In case of far locations beyond our reach, we relay the information to the regional or national Emergency Operations Center
 b. In case of location within our reach, we organized humanitarian aid operations with our volunteers.

During and after Hurricane Harvey in USA, we were monitoring the emergency communication via HF radio and Echolink and offered translation support for translation english to spanish of the information released from the NHC for the spanish speaking community living in the affected area.

During and after Mexico Earthquake, we are monitoring the emergency communication via HF radio and Echolink for relay of messages between Mexico and Peru as needed. Also via Zello network app on smartphone.

During and after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico we are trying monitor the emergency communication via HF radio, however due the massive destruction caused by the storm no communication antennas has been left, silence in the radio frequencies confirm this. Echolink is not working neither. Zello network app on smartphone is working, some internet service has been repaired. We are monitoring the Zello channel for relay of messages between Puerto Rico and Peru as needed. Last reports say 85% of the country has no communication means

OUR STATION AT PRESENT IS ACTIVE