Communication in Times of
Disaster
During the early days of the 20th
Century, communication was slow and cumbersome. The crisis of the 1908
fire in San Francisco could only be understood on the East Coast as
telegraph keys pounded out the details. Morse code ruled the day!
Today's modern communication and
emergency networks are far superior to what has existed in the past,
when they work. The inherent problem with many of these new advances is
that they are very dependent upon a rather fragile infrastructure. In
2003 the massive Eastern and Midwestern States as well as parts of
Canada suffered a total electrical blackout affecting as many as 45
million people. More than 508 generating units at 265 power plants shut
down during the outage. The reliability of the electrical grid was
called into question.
In 1999 Southern Brazil was darkened
by a grid failure that started with a lightning strike. Over 95
million people went without electricity and more than 60,000 people
were stuck in Rio’s subway system. The complex array of generators,
transmitters and power lines appeared to “break apart” like a
shattering tempered glass window. Just as a stack of dominoes, as one
part of the integrated system fails, many other components quickly
follow suit.
According to Wikipedia, “As power lines carry more
current, they get hotter. This causes them to lengthen and sag between
towers. They may safely reach a specified minimum clearance height
above the ground. If the lines sag further, a flashover to nearby
objects (such as trees) can occur, causing a transient increase in
current. Automatic protective relays detect the high current and
quickly act to disconnect the faulted line from service.
Should a fault occur and take a line out of service,
the change in current flow is compensated by other transmission lines,
which must have enough spare capacity to carry the excess current. If
they do not, overload protection in those lines will also trip, causing
a cascading failure as the excess current is switched onto neighboring
circuits running at or near their capacity.”
On August 29, 2005, the skies above
many Gulf Coast towns went dark. When Hurricane Katrina finally passed,
emergency services encountered great initial difficulty in establishing
communications with rescuers and victims of the disaster-stricken
areas.
Power lines, cellular phone towers,
radio antennae and emergency generators were completely knocked out.
Immediately the call went out to a number of amateur radio operators
to help with the relief and rescue operations. Morse code was among the
various methods used by these operators that were essential in giving
aid to emergency services.
Without the ability to call on and
rely upon the skills of amateur radio operators skilled in Morse code
and other communication techniques, disaster relief just might come to
a complete stand-still in some of the harshest conditions. Some of the
very people who may consider the knowledge of Morse code to be past its
prime become the very people that rely upon it when their own “modern”
methods fail.
