FEMA Administrator Voices the Value of Amateur Radio

On May 3, 2011 in a forum at FCC Headquarters (Washington, DC) officials from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), FEMA, the FCC and the private sector were brought together to discuss earthquake communications preparedness.


During the forum, the FEMA Administrator - Craig Fugate made the following statements regarding Amateur radio:

*** He described the Amateur Radio operator as “the ultimate backup; the originators of what we call social media.”


*** “During the initial communications out of Haiti, volunteers using assigned frequencies that they are allocated, their own equipment, their own money, nobody pays them, were the first ones oftentimes getting word out in the critical first hours and first days as the rest of the systems came back up,”


*** “I think that there is a tendency because we have done so much to build infrastructure and resiliency in all our other systems, we have tended to dismiss that role ‘When Everything Else Fails.’ Amateur Radio oftentimes is our last line of defense.”

Read the ARRL article for more information about this topic<LINK