Massachusetts Tornado

[rob_ma]

Hi all,

One of the tornadoes that occurred here in Massachusetts touched down 3/4 of a mile from my home. Fortunately, no damage to my property, just loss of power, cell service and Internet (until a few minutes ago). I am still able to get orders out the door but if you don't get a response from me within the normal 24 hour window, please be patient. I don't know how stable my Internet connection will be. The cable company has a generator hooked into their system at the end of my street (which I am very thankful for!) and of course my family was pretty well prepped. 

One of the local newspapers has a lot of photos from the disaster areas. We were fortunate to have quite a bit of warning and people actually heeded it even though tornadoes are rather uncommon here. Loss of life was low but there are a lot of people here who no longer have homes. The area down the street that got hit looks just like it got nuke with all the trees sliced off at the 10 foot level. Very sobering stuff.

- Rob

[MaddoginMass]

Rob,

Glad to hear you made it through OK.  Tornadoes stayed south of me.  The pictures were very sobering considering it could have just as easily happened where I am.

Tim

[OKCPrepper]

Hi Rob,
Glad to hear your family is safe, we were within 5 miles of the F5 killer storm here in OK 2 weeks ago.

Radios are working great, we're still working on getting our comm grid organized. We had an hold Ham operator that recently joined our MAG, 42 years experience. He is going to teach classes to our group so we will have that integrated with the Puxings for short range comm.

Take care
Mike

[rob_ma]

Radios are working great, we're still working on getting our comm grid organized. We had an hold Ham operator that recently joined our MAG, 42 years experience. He is going to teach classes to our group so we will have that integrated with the Puxings for short range comm.

We found out how important communications were when all land line phones, cell service and Internet in the area was down and all roads out of town were full of fallen trees. Trying to get in touch with family to let them know we were OK was tough. They don't all live within radio distance. My family appreciated the backup power (generator and solar charged battery packs) and the radio equipment we had available to us.  It was interesting to hear all the public safety folks on the scanner trying to work without their cell phones. Radio played a HUGE part and was a great source of information about what was going on around us.

- Rob

[radiomacgyver]

Glad you and your family made out ok. Great news and updates were heard via ham radio too.