Kentucky Earthquake Technical Meeting

Today we are in Frankfort KY meeting with the Governor's Kentucky Earthquake Technical Workgroup. This committee was set up to coordinate federal, state, and local government agencies, earth science activities, business, industry, and other institutions in the formulation of public policy and in improving emergency preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery capabilities.
This is important to our research since the earthquake scenario is truly the "all hazards" type event.
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Flat Tire?

We drove the METL over 1700 miles, through a hurricane, over all kinds of debris, through mud, through water, all without any problems. However within 10 minutes of being back in Murray, it has a flat tire. Hey, I got home safe, I shouldn't complain. :-)
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Demobilization!

Headed home!
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Home Sweet Home

I went out last night and drove to Lake Charles LA to find an open store to buy a tent and mattress. No more sleeping in the truck!

Fine Dining

Someone asked what an MRE was. Meal Ready to Eat. Todays lunch menu was chicken and dumpings, bread, peanut butter, apple jelly, short bread cookie, chocolate, strawberry shake, and a packet with instant coffee, sugar, creamer, salt, gum, toilet paper, matches, and that neat little bottle of Tabasco sauce. As much as people make fun of them, they really are tasty!

Obligatory Gas Station Damage Photo

Everyone has been asking for damage photos, so I give you the obligatory gas station awning destruction.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous returning this morning, wondering how well the MITOC ran all night without me watching over it. Turns out there were no problems., all systems nominal! We did have a small problem with the router wanting to restart every hour or so, which would bring down the network for less than 60 seconds (more of an annoyance than anything). Turning off UPnP seems to have fixed that problem.

Bad news, the Salvation Army has moved on to other areas. Good new, the FEMA camp should be set up in time for dinner tonight, but looks like lunch will be MREs. And my digestive system was just about back to normal! The camp will also have washers and dryers, which is good, since I'll run out of clean clothes tomorrow.

Driving around this morning in the daylight was interesting. Mile long gas lines at the few stations with generators, miles and miles of utility trucks, and debris all over the road. It's like another world.

zzz ZZZ zzz

Well I found an excuse to head up to Lufkin TX for the night. A friend of mine back home made arrangements for me to spend the night at an old friend of his here. Lufkins power was restored just today. A hot shower and a bed!!!!! Goodnight!
ZzzzzZ
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Live from TX

I had an extra couple of minutes today, so I set up a dash cam on the METL. To see it go to MurrayStateMETL Live Video . I'll try to keep the stream up as much as I can, but our emergency traffic takes priority.

Last count I had 48 users on the MITOC system. The traffic is balanced between the Motosat and a Verizon air card. I've been able to experiment with the new MITOC ET router, and I'm excited that it was able to support so many users for over 24 hours straight. The MotoSat has had a few bugs, but I think that may relate to the shear number of other Sat trucks in the area overloading the bird.

The Incident Management Team IT guy has arrived, and is very impressed with the systems. We keep getting requests to add more users to the system, So we keep exanding the system out using the mesh network.

I'm crossing my fingers hoping that we'll get a room tonight, because I need a shower!

Dinner Time

A hot meal thanks to the Salvation Army.

This morning we interfaced our MITOC system to the building network, so we are feeding the entire building with wired network inside and covering the outside with our mesh wireless. I have plexed together the Motosat and our verizon air card, plus added another Verizon air card belonging to the Incident Management team for additional bandwidth.


It really is a small world. Sitting next to me is a couple of guys from Murray! They work for the Forestry Service in Land Between the Lakes. Not only that, the son of one of them is a Murray State Student in the TSM program!

Logistics is trying to find a hotel in the area to commandeer. We have a generator that should run a 40 or 50 room hotel if we can find one. A shower would be really nice, if it has running water. The FEMA hotel ( ha ha ) out back won't be set up until Thursday morning.

I have never appreciated a flush toilet as much as I do right now.

News of first food and showers

Last night was a lot more comfortable weather wise. The wind was up and the humidity down. Although that suburban seat is getting uncomfortable. FEMA is setting up a camp for over 2000 workers and contractors at this location. When this is setup, we are welcome to the showers and food. Until then, its beans and franks for me. Note to self - must pack Mountain Dew next time, or I need some of John's coffee. There is a fuel depot on site, so fuel is not a problem, and TX is paying for it. There is no power anywhere, everything is on generators and will be for several weeks. Oh yea, no electricity = no air conditioning!

Bugs....

Texas has some big bugs. REALLY big bugs. That is all

At the Civic Center

We are located at a civic center that mostly survived the hurricane, although with water damage. Cell phone service comes and goes, thank goodness I have the VoIP phones to call home. There is no electricity anywhere, so no Walmarts, gas stations, coke machines, nothing. Anywhere. FEMA has a Logistical Staging Area located here. FEMA will bring in food, water, ice, ect to this location, and we will push it out to the Point Of Distribution (POD) centers. This will require communication with the PODs run by the National Guard, as well as the local government agents. I am setting up the MITOC wireless network for them to use with a server and several laptops for logistical purposes. Database kind of stuff, ideal for our new research project, IMDSS.

Beaumont, TX Staging Area

Hurry up and wait! The staging area is filled with entire fleets of police vehicles, fire trucks, Forestry Service vehicles, you name it. We are being tasked to the TX Department of Forestry. This confused me until I found out that the TX Department of Forestry and the Federal Division of Forestry have a long history of supporting incident management during hurricane responses. Their main mission will be to support the various local governments by coordinating ice, water and food distribution, as well as search and rescue. The radio systems in the METL have been a huge help, we have had contact with amateur radio operators in the area since about Little Rock Arkansas. The interoperability part of the MITOC is helpful in coordinating between different agencies.

Middle of Nowhere, TX

I’m 60 miles north of Beaumont now and there is a lot of debris on the road. I think it is too dangerous to continue in the dark, so we’ll spend the night here in a small roadside park. I haven’t seen power anywhere since leaving Texarkana. I forgot just how dark it gets when there are no lights for hundreds of miles.

Texarkana, TX

Currently we’re in Texarkana TX enjoying the remnants of Hurricane Ike. The winds got bad enough that I pulled over at a truck stop, and ate the first of what I figure will be many MREs. The rainfall is very heavy, and I just measured a 78 MPH wind gust! We just received word that our mission will shift to Beaumont TX. That puts us about 5 hours from the staging area. Evidently that area of TX is the hardest hit.

At Home

Well, Just got the call, heading out to Lufkin TX to stage response for Hurricane Ike. The METL is packed and fueled. I kiss the kids and wife goodbye (it is my anniversary but she is very understanding). Now where is that Willie Nelson “On the Road Again” CD?