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REACHING OUT: VOLUNTEERS SEARCH FOR EVACUEES' FAMILIES

By J. Griffin Coop/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, September 8, 2005 8:49 AM CDT

As hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees slept on cots and roamed through the lobby of the Pine Bluff Convention Center Wednesday, volunteers helped locate some of the evacuees' displaced family members.

Through amateur radio and Internet Web sites, volunteers reunited about 150 evacuees with their loved ones Tuesday and continued to search for others Wednesday.

Ham radio operators volunteering at the Convention Center fielded 500 requests to locate relatives Tuesday and more people were requesting their services Wednesday.

"No operation is completely 100 percent successful unless we feel like we've matched up most of the people that are looking for someone," said Bob Ideker, a ham radio operator from Little Rock. "That's just an evolution of realizing there are a lot of situations out there that people may never contact each other."

Amateur radio operators -- called hams -- volunteer their services during crises like hurricanes, tornadoes and other disasters. While hams transmit some information about evacuees to other shelters across the country, hams at the Convention Center use American Red Cross and Salvation Army Web site listings to help survivors reconnect.

The ham operators are "monitoring the emergency frequencies in use currently," said Charles Champion, a ham radio operator at the Convention Center. "We're under emergency conditions for ham radio operators. We do not transmit unless we have life and death type information, and in case there's an emergency call for anyone."

Hams take part in amateur radio as a hobby, but they take their work seriously.

"We feel comfortable in what we do," Ideker said. "We practice this. It's a hobby, but we practice it as if this is what we do on a full-time basis. I have a full-time job, (but) I'm just here today to volunteer some time."

Amateur radio operators will continue to offer their service at the Convention Center as long as necessary, which could be months, Ideker said.

"We realize this is a long-term project, and certainly we're going to need the help of other hams throughout the United States to be just as dedicated as the ones that have come down here to operate," Ideker said.

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