i spent the day of this event at the PD assisiting with local issues so we could send our regular officers to other agencies needing help. That evening i assisted with search and rescue ops in nneiboring communities. the following day was spent taking care of my property and helping the neighbors as manpower was begining to arrive.

day of event...
when the Shit hits the fan LE and fire are overwhelmed. Emergency calls not involving direct threat to life will not be answered.
Civillian help for searching is extreamly welcome as is delivering supplies to search teams.
Interagency coms is a joke. most departments could not talk to each other and were depending on cell phones to dispatchers to contact and relay info to other agencies. the mutual aid channels were overwhelmed with traffic and departs have pathetic radio disciple.

Ham radio operators were VERY effective at passing traffic between agencies and getting supplies where they needed to be on the civillian side.

Looting began in some areas as soon as the storm passed.

Day +1

Civillian assistence was becoming heavily discouraged and people were being ordered to leave the area.
Looters roaming at will, no one available to stop them in most areas.
Gasoline in a 10 mile area was gone. no power, the stations that could pump had 2+ hour waits in line and multiple fights broke out in the area.
water services in many areas are now reccomending boiling water as the system has potentially been contaminated.
water in my area is consdered ok but it an enourmous chlorine smell and taste to it. we are filter water now if for nothing else to remove chemicals.

Day +2
Locals becoming more irate about gasoline. MUCH more aggressive behavior being noticed.
volunteer assistance for search and rescue has been completely discouraged in most areas.
Nat'l Guard on scene in worst areas and securing locations for search and rescue.
Worst areas have declared 100% curfew at sundown and anyone out after dark WILL be arrested.


my area recieved little damage and here are some interesting observations.....


Generators are gold. Power is currently the currency.
Gasoline is the #1 sought commodity.
Bottled water is #2
CASH. just for fuel for 3 days this could easily call for 200+ for generator and vehicles.

food and water in general have not been issues. churches are opening kitchens and shelters and most are providing 1-200 meals day each. <at least that has been reported> there has been enough water brought in to float the USS alabama.

For accurate information monitoring LE and fire traffic has been useless. They only thing you can really get it knowing the location. Ham radio has been the most accurate source of damage reports i have found. they have also been vital in coordinating civillian assets and getting them either into areas LE has arrived or getting supplies to rescue units that can't get them from their agency due to lack of manpower/vehicles.

the civivllin involvment thing has a couple of issues. 1 is liability as these people would be under the direction of a .gov official and if injured could sue <yea i know but it's the world we live in>

it also has to do with the general chaos of the enviornment. having uncoordinated people running around the scene rummaging through debris makes it hard to recognise homeowners from looters. it also hampers movement of emergency vehicles when roads are in bad shape and clogged with people moving around.

from what i can tell civillian assistance is encouraged on the outlying areas and after the search and rescue crews have cleared a location. may churches have set up operation centers to assist with supplies and as a coordination point for local non le/rescue groups.

looks like my involvement for the most part is over unless the local pd asks me to come in and assist with coverage. this really has been one of those times when if you don't need to be out, don't leave the house. I know yesterday LE were diverted from rescue operations to manage road blocks because people were bypassing barriers to enter active rescue areas.

while i know people were eager to get back in... PLEASE if they ask you to stay away do so. That officer you pull away to deal with you may be needed to save a life in the debris.

i think the real eye opener for me here has been just how selfish our society has become. even those in a low/no damage area with no real threat other than a day or 2 of not getting to a gas station began hoarding fuel to the point of pulling weapons and assaulting people to cut in line a gas stations. if this was happening 12 hours after the event i can only imagine how bad it would be after many days. luckily power is coming back on and emotions are begining die down.

it will interesting to see how the looter situation plays out. i was told today the fed was taking over security and their rules of engagement on looters is more or less shoot on sight. i know that was put into effect on the gulf coast during ivan and MANY arrests were made but i know of non actually killed.

oddly enough i have not hear much from ares or races. most of the aid has been coming from individual hams and local radio clubs assisting with shelter coms.

a lot of that is in the works but there are apparently agrrements that must be made between state county and city agencies for frequecy's and such. from what i understand there has also been a LOT of static from federal agencies such as FBI and ATF for interoperabilty of coms. this is just hearsay i have gotten from those involved so take it for what it's worth.


by the way, the top of my bald head is blistered today. a GOOD hat needs to be added asap to prepes.

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mostly just hoarding i think. many with generators but also many without just out filling up everything they can find.

the county, city and our dept are 800. everyone else is vhf/uhf. our police radios don't talk to our own FD. the 800 system works pretty well here but we are mostly rural.

we have 2 mutual aid channels but they are shared statewide.

Extremely good write-up Mike!

What you wrote up and sequence of timing almost matches my personal experience in the past to a "T" including your observations.  

Indeed the more affluent we have become and reduction of the family structure as a society, the more fragile we become.  

Tj

most people here have enough food to ride out 2-3 days without power before it spoils. Bottled water is everywhere and fema tosses it out by the truckload. ICE is much harder to come by during disasters. keep in mind this is day 2 or so.

GOOD 2 way radios are very handy down here right now. cell service in most areas was spotty at best or simply down for almost 24 hours after the storm.

we have the grants what we don't have is the political will to put it in place. Every agancy wants to  "own" the system

Could be worse- you could be one of the retarded agencies that went 100% Nextel- even buying car "radios" that looked like a real radio, but only went over the Nextel/Sprint cell network

i have a drawer full of frs/gmrs radios. if they come in a blister packs at meglomart.... they are junk.

a good commercial type radio is really the only useful kit IMHO. my ham radio got soaked, bounced around and generally abused and still looks new. not to mention it gets out 15+ miles on it's own. others may tell you different but JMHO frs/gmrs radios are for soccer moms to talk while they are at the mall. ham is cheaper to license and significantly better gear.

A .22 is better than nothing for home defense, and if it was all I had when SHTf I would use it.

But I damm sure wouldn't make plans to use a .22 for home defense.

Planning to use FRS for SHTF comms is the equivelant of planning to use a .22 for home defense. It is a plan, it beats no plan, but it is still a shitty plan.

That said, I like that so many plan to use it. I scan all the FMRS and GMRS freqs, so it makes it easy to know what everyone else is up to. Any tactical advantage I can get is a plus.

But I don't advise people do it, unless they are people I would rather see fail.

GOOD radios yes.

blister pack radios from walmart are junk. they won't work when you need them too.

no way in hell your going to get 15 miles out of any blister pack walmart radio. we could barely get 2.5 out them between boats deep sea fishing. you won't get better LOS conditions that that. consider FRS is limited to .5watt power and must have an integrated antenna. in other words NO exteran antenna upgrades.

gmrs needs a license to be legal and most handhelds are under 5watts <especially the cheap ones>. once again realistic range will be under 5 miles best case. without a repeater they are crap.

ham ticket 15.00
2m weatherproof IPX rated handheld 100.00
range with repeater.... 50+ miles.

115.00 gets you a REAL radio that won;t give you trouble and will get you realistic good information and assistence.

trust i am king of cheap. i have a shitload of frs/gmrs radios. non of them lasted more than a few uses with light use before one or both in the set died.

Even then, FRS has too many limitations for me to consider it a serious tool.

First, you are very limited on frequencies. That means a high chance of interference from other users. Made worse by every other kid out there having one as a toy who will jam you just for fun. A simplex repeater on FRS as suggested will just make it worse- you will get interference from an even wider area.

Second, being limited to those freqs means anyone with basic know-how and a cheap used scanner is listening in. Most of the cops in this county have a bank in the scanner in their car loaded with FRS freqs, and they catch a lot of juveniles out doing various mischief by just scanning that bank of freqs when they get a call and show up. Likewise the game wardens always scan FRS and marine freqs and catch lots of poachers. Limiting yourself to fixed, known freqs invites everyone to listen, including people who may mean you harm.

If you are going to invest in quality radios, use them on ham freqs, or anything but FRS.

if it comes in a blister pack it doesn't matter whos name is on the package in my experience. although i do have a set of motorola frs radios that are about 8 years old that still work. range is horrible but they have survived.

a good set of motorolas will run you 50.00+

yeasu ft250 will run you 115.00 NIB or used about 50.00. it will have 10 times the range and is IPX rated for shock and water.

you get what you pay for with radios. there is a reason they cost a little more.