Hur­ri­cane Matthew began as a trop­i­cal storm near the Wind­ward Islands, but inten­si­fied sev­er­al days lat­er to be a Cat­e­go­ry 4 Hur­ri­cane, unleash­ing its fury and result­ing in hun­dreds of deaths and wide­spread damage. 

It was the first major event in the Atlantic hur­ri­cane sea­son with the super­storm caus­ing many deaths, most­ly in Haiti, before reach­ing the south-east­ern Unit­ed States, and caus­ing flood­ing in Atlantic Canada. 

Cesar Pio San­tos HR2P, the Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Coor­di­na­tor for the Inter­na­tion­al Radio Union Region 2 pre­sent­ed on the hur­ri­cane at the pre-arranged con­fer­ence in Chile, which was attend­ed by those from Ama­teur Radio who are involved dis­as­ter response and training. 

He told the gath­er­ing that when Matthew was still a Trop­i­cal Storm, the Caribbean Emer­gency and Weath­er Net (CEWN), formed in sev­er­al Caribbean islands, acti­vat­ed to receive reports about floods, land­slides and tidal waves. 

Dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Matthew, the Radio Club Domini­cano (RDC) was mon­i­tor­ing its course and pro­vid­ed more than 40 radio ama­teurs in the Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Centres. 

The Fed­eración de Radioafi­ciona­dos de Cuba (FRC) swung into full action when the Cuban Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice deter­mined that the hur­ri­cane would cross sev­er­al east­ern provinces of Cuba. 

 

FRC set up 505 radio ama­teurs in six provinces that would be affect­ed by the hur­ri­cane with radio sta­tions in safe loca­tions to oper­ate on 2m, 40m and 80m bands. 

Amer­i­can Radio Relay League (ARRL) began mon­i­tor­ing Hur­ri­cane Matthew on Sep­tem­ber 28, and liaised with radio ama­teurs in Puer­to Rico, Domini­can Repub­lic, Haiti and Cuba as the storm moved through the Caribbean. 

Cesar HR2P says the first impact on the Unit­ed States was on Octo­ber 6 in South­ern Flori­da. Over sev­er­al days the storm moved along the east­ern coast of Flori­da, Geor­gia, South Car­oli­na and North Car­oli­na before turn­ing east and head­ing out to sea. 

Hur­ri­cane Matthew result­ed in 900 deaths in Haiti, a count expect­ed to to increase as com­mu­ni­ca­tions and cut-off areas are reached. Vil­lages and towns were seri­ous­ly dam­aged or destroyed, and agri­cul­tur­al crops lost. Haiti had not seen a Hur­ri­cane of that mag­ni­tude since 1964, and is still recov­er­ing from the dead­ly earth­quake in 2010. 

In the USA the ARRL Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Ser­vice (ARES) groups were on stand­by days ahead of Matthew’s landfall. 

ARES staffed Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Cen­tres, the Nation­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre, evac­u­a­tion shel­ters, and Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice fore­cast offices. 

Addi­tion­al­ly sev­er­al nets were acti­vat­ed to assist with weath­er reports and emer­gency traf­fic; the Sal­va­tion Army Team Emer­gency Net­work or SATERN was on 14.265 MHz han­dling emer­gency, or health and wel­fare traf­fic from hur­ri­cane-affect­ed areas, and weath­er reports were received by the Hur­ri­cane Watch Net, VoIP Hur­ri­cane Net, and WX4NHC. 

The ARRL acti­vat­ed its sta­tion W1AW to assist these nets as well as main­tain con­tact with fed­er­al gov­ern­ment sta­tions through the Shared Resources (SHARES) net­work that coor­di­nates dis­as­ter response. 

Some 1.2 mil­lion US res­i­dents were with­out pow­er, and thou­sands evac­u­at­ed to shel­ters, where ham radio vol­un­teers sup­port­ed communication. 

Gen­er­al­ly there was no com­mu­ni­ca­tions emer­gency in the Unit­ed States, although at least 17 peo­ple were killed. Ama­teur Radio traf­fic was pri­mar­i­ly weath­er reports being relayed to the Nation­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre. The ARRL was expect­ed to make a full report next month. 

(Sources: Cesar Pio San­tos HR2P EMCOR IARU R2; Mike Corey, KI1U, Emer­gency Coor­di­na­tor Area ́‘B’ IARU R2; Jeff Austin 9Y4J, Emer­gency Coor­di­na­tor Area ‘C’ IARU R2, Rafael Mar­tinez HI8ROX Emer­gency Coor­di­na­tor, Radio Club Domini­cano; Fed­era­cion de Radioafi­ciona­dos de Cuba; Boyd Snow VO1CBS ARES Man­ag­er New­found­land and Labrador Section) 

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