MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Mossel Bay contributed in another, unseen yet very valuable manner towards the fight against the devastating fires that swept through the Garden Route the past two weeks.
Radio amateurs of the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) were on standby to render emergency communications when parts of George experienced Telkom landline and power outages in the Knysna area.
Radio amateurs in the Southern Cape were called on WhatsApp to make their amateur radio stations available for emergency communications should commercial communications fail due to the fires. The AREDN: Amateur Radio Joint Operations Centre (JOC) was established on 29 October to render support.
"The AREDN: Amateur Radio JOC is active on AREDN Mossel Bay Mesh Network, Echolink, AllStar, Twitter and Zello and the participating Amateur Radio Operators Participating are ZS2I, ZS1ZS, ZS1I and ZR1AOC," Johan Terblanche (ZS1I) of Mossel Bay said.
Help with search
"The AREDN JOC received a written request on 30 October to assist a frantic daughter in search for her parents, Anton and Irana Murry who recently moved from Gauteng to Karatara.
"All her efforts to contact her parents resulted in cellphone messages indicating that the subscriber was not available.
"The daughter had no further information to the whereabouts of her parents and was worried that something happened to them.
"I immediately put out a missing persons call for help on Twitter, facebook and send an email to the Knysna Municipality to check their records whether they might have been evacuated to a shelter in Sedgefield or any other shelter in the area.
"The Sedgefield Municipality was contacted and given the location of the couples property in the Karatara area.
"Confirmation was later received that both were found safely in their home in Karatara. Contact over the cellphone could not be established with the couple due to cell phone outages in the area.
"The Amateur Radio AREDN JOC was relieved that both were safe and that we could assist the daughter in making contact with her parents. We are glad that both were safe, in high spirit and that we could have been of service."
Terblanche said the AREDN were also able to offer on the minute reports on traffic situations and road closures when requester, assisting travellers along the way.
One of the most valuable strong points of their operations are the written back-up copies with a timeline that were instantly available from Data and Record Storage Facilities. The support and interlinking of local radio amateurs, Working on Fire, the public, NGOs, WCG, Private Sector, Private Volunteer Fire Services and Garden Route District, George, Oudtshoorn, Bitou, Sedgefield and Knysna municipalities and Disaster Management were exceptional and need to be commended, Terblanche added. He said an AREDN emergency communication exercise in the Southern Cape will be most useful in the near future to even improve our skills further.
The Amateur Radio JOC will remain active until all fires are fully brought under control.
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