Amateur Radio:  Why?

Timeframe Potential Impact On Services

0 hours Services with backup generators and uninterruptible power supplies will continue

Closure of all other services (i.e. financial & educational)

0-2 hours Increased demand on public services (i.e. health & social care)

Closure of transport networks

2-6 hours Mobile phone network likely to collapse after roughly two hours

Public unable to communicate.  BBC Radio 1-4 provides limited broadcast updates

People will require battery powered radios or will have to use their car radio to listen

6-12 hours Severe staff absence begins due to transport disruption and school closures

12-48 hours Water supply failure (some water treatment works can only last for six hours without electricity)

Food in fridges & freezers will start to go off

2-7 days The core fixed telecoms network is likely to fail after five days, when batteries in exchanges 

The Airwave network (the mobile comms network used by emergency services may start to fail under extreme usage)

Potential public disorder

“When Everything Else Fails. Amateur Radio often times is our last line of defence.  When you need amateur radio, you really need them.”

— W. Craig Fugate, Administrator of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FEMA

“When all else fails, we rely on the amateur radio operators to provide communications when it really matters.”

— Todd Gritzer, Former President of the Los Angeles Radio Intergroup (LARIG)

“Our city's vast and complex communications system, is indebted to the many trained amateur radio volunteers, who are efficient and dependable and lend a much needed hand in times of crisis or disaster. They are an invaluable part of our city's communication network...”

— Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor of New York City (1994–2001

“[Amateur Radio] plays a vital public safety communications service [with] tremendous potential when all other forms of radio communication fail, especially during emergencies.”

— The Hon. Greg Walden, Member of the U.S. Congress

The final report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, titled "A Failure of Initiative," specifically discussed amateur radio in the context of "What Went Right."  This official recognition is in itself a positive statement of value.

The widespread failure of commercial communication systems (cell towers, landlines) solidified the media and public perception that amateur radio was a vital lifeline. 

"Amateur radio operators managed to quickly get on line and begin relaying calls for help."

"monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the U.S. until messages were received by emergency response personnel." (As cited in a Bush White House post-mortem report)

From FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security

  This quote, from a former FEMA Administrator, is one of the most widely used official endorsements of amateur radio:3

“When Everything Else Fails. Amateur Radio often times is our last line of defense.  When you need amateur radio, you really need them.”

— The Hon. W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FEMA5

Fugate further described their role in a forum on earthquake communications:

“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...6 A strong Amateur Radio community [needs to be] plugged into these plans.”

From the Legislative Branch (Congress)

This quote emphasizes the Amateur Radio role when all other communication methods are unusable:

“[Amateur Radio] plays a vital public safety communications service [with] tremendous potential when all other forms of radio communication fail, especially during emergencies.”

— The Hon. Greg Walden, Member, U.S. Congress

From Local Officials (Post-Disasters)

This quote recognizses the direct, local impact of volunteer operators:

“I have been frankly fascinated with that unpaid group of people with ham radios, they make available a wireless system that seldom if ever can be totally disrupted by a disaster.  Ham radio operators are the heart and the soul and the life blood of that system.”

— The Hon. Mayor Willie Brown, Mayor of San Francisco (1996–2004)