It's not a Katrina-style emergency, but...the amateur radio club I belonged to when I first got my ticket (Lynchburg ARC, Virginia, a FANTASTIC bunch) did a lot of work with local charity "a-thons"--bike-a-thons, walk-a-thons, the city Christmas Parade, stuff like that, probably 10-12 events a year. We had a good repeater system on 2m and 440 and put it to excellent use. On a lot of weekends I found myself standing around watching people do crazy things like ride a bike for 100 miles or run a 50-mile foot race through the Blue Ridge.
So one weekend we were helping the Heart Association or the Lung Association or some such group with a 50-mile charity bike ride. About 12 of us rolled in on Saturday morning to be told, "Oh, we don't need you. We have cellphones." Our net operator and the lead organizer had an argument (nobody had told the club that we weren't needed), and we wound up carrying the day and stationing our operators where they were assigned. I was at one of the mid-event rest stops.
Now, this was circa 1994, back when cellphones were a lot bigger and a LOT hungrier on power than they are now. Back then, of course, you couldn't run a cellphone all day like you can now. As the day wore on, the phones started, one by one, to go dead from constant use. And the 2m net traffic picked up. By 2/3 of the way through the event, every brick cellphone had crapped out and we were the sole communications for the event. I had this gigantic Quantum battery, the size of a big police HT, powering my tiny little Yaesu FT-415, a radio about 1/4 the size of the battery! So I had no trouble staying up and running the entire day.
The worst part of the day was when the net had to be used to coordinate an ambulance response. Some poor guy on the ride had a heart attack and fell over stone dead.
The next year, they made sure to contact the club early so that they could assure that about 15 hams were available.
In 1996 we had a freak downburst thunderstorm rip through Lynchburg with 80+ mph winds and knock out every communication tower the city had save one, and the phone lines that connected their 911 center to surrounding jurisdictions. We sent hams to the sheriffs' offices in two nearby counties and used a guy's backyard repeater to pass traffic between the various police and sheriffs' departments.
Yeah, the Internet has made ham radio "obsolete"...to a point. But when you need it, you NEED IT. I'm not a really active operator anymore, but my Advanced-class ticket is current through 2012 and I aim to renew it as long as I'm alive. Even though I really only drag my gear out on Field Day lately.
}:-)4
de KS4RY
I just realized that storm was in 1993, not 1996. Senility at 39 is a horrible thing. :)
}:-)4
A did a whole bunch of 'a=thon' events when I was in Lubbock in the late 80's and early 90's.
The most fun I have with 2m anyway, is weather spotting. Nothing like tracking a high-precip supercell after dark by lightning flashes alone!