The Atlantic hur­ri­cane dis­as­ters this year left more than 260 dead with $300 bil­lion in dam­ages, mak­ing them the costli­est ever. 

There were three main hur­ri­canes and two oth­ers. Hur­ri­cane Har­vey was the costli­est trop­i­cal cyclone on record. The weath­er sys­tem was tracked through the Caribbean as it weak­ened, then inten­si­fied to a Cat­e­go­ry 4 as it hit the US State of Texas. 

Hur­ri­cane Irma inun­dat­ed Bar­bu­da and Puer­to Rico, before mov­ing to Flori­da Keys in the US. While Hur­ri­cane Maria, regard­ed as the worst nat­ur­al dis­as­ter on record in Domini­ca, also caused cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age and a major human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Puer­to Rico.

A string of oth­er Caribbean islands, includ­ing the British Vir­gin Islands, Turks and Caicos, Cuba, and Saint Mar­tin, have been affected. 

Attention to the role of Amateur Radio has been drawn in comments on International Disaster Reduction Day (October 13), by Caribbean Telecommunications Union Secretary-General Bernadette Lewis who described Amateur Radio as a “bedrock of sustained communications” during emergencies.

She spoke as part of a panel on emergency telecommunications during the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 (WTDC-17), in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Her clear message was to cultivate “a new and younger generation of radio amateurs” to carry out continue provision of emergency communications.

From Trinidad and Toba­go, Ms Lewis said: “Ama­teur Radio has been a sta­ple, and it is because of…the Ama­teur Radio oper­a­tors in the region that we get a lot of the infor­ma­tion that we need.” 

Her pre­sen­ta­tion defined Ama­teur Radio as one com­po­nent of the coor­di­na­tion of pre­pared­ness, response, and recov­ery efforts by the nation­al emer­gency man­age­ment agencies. 

There was also a stepped up effort to restore Amateur Radio capabilities in the Dominica Republic after Hurricane Maria in October.

Before that disaster, work begun last year by the Yasme Foundation involved the Dominica Amateur Radio Club and Dominica’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, to recruit and equip new operators for just such an emergency.

Now after Hurricane Maria, the Yasme Foundation has been joined by Yaesu USA, the Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service (FAIRS), and individual GoFundMe donors through that crowd-funding online platform.

Resources for the Caribbean island nation are also com­ing from US based Domini­ca expa­tri­ates. One aim is to equip Domini­ca with radio equip­ment and solar-pow­ered bat­tery-charg­ing sta­tions in a network. 

Through­out the Caribbean there was involve­ment by radio ama­teurs not only with Har­vey, Maria and Irma, but Hur­ri­canes Katia, and Jose. 

The Atlantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son begins on June 1 and ends in Novem­ber. Reports on it are at: https://iaru-r3.org/category/disaster-communications/

– Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee