The 10^th anniver­sary of Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, one of the worst of its type in US his­to­ry, had Jack­son Coun­ty in Mis­souri vis­it­ed where the Ama­teur Radio emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions role was praised. 

Sen­a­tor Roger Wick­er per­son­al­ly thanked radio ama­teurs for their life­sav­ing role dur­ing the Hur­ri­cane, and took part in use of the spe­cial anniver­sary event K5A, one of a dozen such call­signs issued. 

“It’s a good oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to thank the Ama­teur Radio oper­a­tors for their role in help­ing the pub­lic to save lives and in get­ting infor­ma­tion out that was vital­ly need­ed,” he told TV news. 

Sen­a­tor Wick­er was co-spon­sor­ing the Ama­teur Radio Par­i­ty Act 2015 — leg­is­la­tion against the expan­sion of restric­tions that have some bans on out­door antennas. 

Devel­op­ing over the Atlantic Ocean, Kat­ri­na came ashore on August 29, 2005, with wind and a tidal wave. It moved struc­tures, caused flood waters to inun­date well inland, and through its path the deaths at least 1,245 people. 

The hur­ri­cane surge pro­tec­tion fail­ures in New Orleans are described as the worst civ­il engi­neer­ing dis­as­ter in US his­to­ry. The dis­as­ter cut nor­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices with Ama­teur Radio help­ing many peo­ple con­tact oth­ers in the US and through­out the world. 

A num­ber net­works were involved in pro­vid­ing vital infor­ma­tion — these includ­ed WX4NHC at the Nation­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre, to the Hur­ri­cane Watch Net, the Water­way Net, Sky­warn and the Sal­va­tion Army Team Emer­gency Radio Net­work (SATERN).

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.