Winsted amateur radio operators survive pseudo-storm

BY JIM MOORE
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WINSTED -- Hurricane Punky packed a punch, if only in the mind.

Local affiliates of the Amateur Radio Relay League prepared for Punky, watching a pseudo-storm that packed 125 mph winds and torrential rains edge toward the Connecticut coast since Sept. 29. Half a dozen operators armed with laptop computers and sophisticated radios relayed emergency messages across the state from the Winchester Center Fire Department headquarters on Newfield Road, pressed into service as the Region 5 headquarters of Connecticut's Amateur Radio Emergency Services.

Punky, named for District Emergency Coordinator David Hyatt's cat, had bite.

By 4:15 p.m. Saturday, with eye of the storm still miles from Bridgeport, the Connecticut River surged past its banks and cut the state in half. You wouldn't have known it, with sunny skies, a calm breeze and temperatures near 60 degrees, unless you were there: it was, of course, a drill.

"Really, it's to stress the system to see where our weaknesses are," explained Steve Williams, who commands the local branch of Skywarn, a program that coordinates amateur radio operators with the National Weather Service.

Williams, Hyatt, and fellow operators used radios mounted in "go boxes," metal briefcases that allow a radio to be transported and set up in a flash, to relay both voice messages and computer text over airwaves that connected the hilltop in Winchester Center with operators across the state.

Hyatt said the drill was time-consuming, requiring months to prepare and days to implement. Saturday's simulated landfall was followed by a coordination of emergency response and damage assessment on Sunday.

Real-life responses in recent years include amateurs banding together during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, and the Hawaii earthquake in 2006.

Dana Borgman, the town's emergency coordinator of the American Radio Relay League, said the local club, Wireless Operators of Winsted, is back in operation with monthly meetings in the town's civil preparedness building on Waldron Street.

Anyone who would like to join in the effort can contact Borgman at (860) 379-3219.