Tallahassee Democrat | 09/03/2005 | Local ham-radio operators help rescue effort Local ham-radio operators help rescue effort By Rocky Scott DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER Tallahassee ham-radio operators took part in the daring helicopter rescue Friday of about 1,500 patients and staff from two New Orleans hospitals besieged by darkness, dank water and gunfire. "There were a lot of heroes in this operation," said Chuck Hall, 52, the HCA Inc. division vice president in Tallahassee after the evacuation of patients and staff from Tulane University Hospital and Clinic ended because of nearby gunfire. The Tulane facility is an HCA hospital, and Hall said he knew the day after Katrina hammered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that the damage made the evacuation inevitable. "They had no power, very little food and the water was rising because of the levee breaks," Hall said. He quickly chartered about 25 helicopters, including medivac helicopters from Sacred Heart Hospital and Baptist Hospital in Pensacola. But Katrina had laid waste to the Big Easy in a manner few ever would have imagined. There was no power, no clean water, no food and, worst of all, no dependable lines of communications. The first 17 flights out of New Orleans were medivac choppers bringing patients to West Florida Regional Hospital in Pensacola. Each chopper returned with 750 pounds of food and medical supplies for the anxious patients and staff at Tulane. Bob Peterson, chief operating officer of West Florida Regional, said the first efforts to remove patients and staff Tuesday often were dangerous. "The (helicopter) pilots reported five near misses," Peterson said. Bad weather and a jury-rigged landing pad - the hospital's helipad was under water - were playing havoc with flights. Worse still, there was no way Hall and his staff could get information to pilots and no one on the ground to guide them onto the top floor of a four-story parking garage that was serving as a landing zone. The elation after the first lift-off from the beleaguered hospital Tuesday quickly faded, Hall said. Worse, city conditions were deteriorating. Looting and gunfire erupted and 100,000 stranded, scared residents became a force ready to spill into anarchy. Enter the Tallahassee Amateur Radio Club, Florida Division of Emergency Management and some old-fashioned ingenuity. State Emergency Management officials suggested Hall contact the local ham radio club to solve the communications dilemma. Urged by rapidly rising water - 8 feet deep in places - and the growing knowledge that New Orleans had become a drowning pool, the ham operators fashioned a satellite reception device atop an 8-story building in downtown Tallahassee. Then three of them - Theo Titus, Gene Floyd and Bill Schmidt - all boarded a helicopter in Tallahassee Wednesday and headed for New Orleans. Atop the garage at Tulane, they set up a generator-powered ham radio with a satellite uplink. By Tuesday afternoon, the choppers were up and running, and Hall and his co-workers in Tallahassee were able to give directions to pilots, but only on paper. Charlie Lien, a radio club member in the Tallahassee command post, explained the communication system this way: the three operators would radio Tallahassee via the satellite uplink. When the broadcast was received, workers would use two-way radios to get the instruction to HCA personnel in the building - the jury-rigged satellite receiver would only work at the top of the building. HCA officials would decide where the next load of patients was to be taken - most were initially moved to the closed New Orleans Airport - and those instructions were relayed via walkie-talkie back to the top of the building, up to the satellite and down to the top of the Tulane parking garage. But there was one more step. The ham operators couldn't talk with the civilian and military helicopters taking part in the airlift so, as each chopper landed, landing instructions in longitude and latitude were written on a piece of paper and handed to the pilot. Once airborne, the pilots would radio their destination to Federal Aviation Administration officials, who were directing what amounted an aerial version of 5 p.m. rush-hour traffic. Landings were dangerous. Pilots unfamiliar with tall buildings around the garage had to put down on top of a parking garage never intended to serve its makeshift function. Rotor blades whirled dangerously close to buildings. Then, Hall said, another hero emerged. John Holland, a LifeNet employee who was helping with the evacuation, jumped out of a medivac chopper and began working as a flight director, giving pilots signals as they threaded their way down to the concrete deck. "He worked on the deck 36 hours straight," Hall said. "He also was instrumental in relaying information to us about the resources that we needed." Military helicopters, including Blackhawks and a CH-47 Chinook, also joined the airlift. Spirits in the Tallahassee command center soared. The military helicopters could carry more patients and staff than the medivac or other chartered helicopters. But they were dashed when, within hours, two of the helicopters, including the Chinook, were pulled out to help in other parts of a city that was rapidly degenerating into a war zone. "We were tired and exhausted," Hall said. "We could hear the noise and activity in the background." The "activity" in this case meant sporadic gunfire. Fog, rain and darkness were constant companions. But the aerial caravan kept rolling until about 1a.m. Thursday, Hall said. Darkness made it too dangerous to fly. The civilian pilots did not have night goggles and the military pilots, even though they had the night goggles, were disoriented by the dark that had buried the city. By Thursday, it was clear two public hospitals nearby - Charity Hospital and University Medical Center - also were in dire straits. Desperate patients from Charity and staff members there were wading through the floodwater to reach the Tulane facility. Boats from the the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife appeared and helped ferry the critically ill to the garage through water fouled by sewage, debris and bodies. Hall found more heroes in the garage. "They were taking care of patients, often in the dark, with no way of knowing when the next chopper was coming," he said. All through Thursday until about midnight, patients and staff from two hospitals, often in groups of two or three, left the chaos below and were ferried to the airport, to other hospitals, to safety. By Friday morning, Hall said about 300 people, including another 30 patients from Charity, remained. All Tulane patients were safely out. The day brought more heroes. A Sacred Heart medivac worker left his helicopter so a doctor and nurse could board and leave. He was not included in the final headcount and remained alone at the hospital for several hours. Hall said the man finally got the attention of police and was airlifted out late Friday afternoon. As the day wore on, reports of gunfire and advancing chaos strained pilots, patients and personnel. Time was working against the Herculean effort. Pilots can fly only so many hours until they have to rest. Helicopters need gas and maintenance. Sick, frail people cannot last long in stifling heat and humidity. Hall said the warning from the National Guard came shortly before the last helicopter lifted off: Gunfire was less than a mile away. The airlift had to end - now. Smoke from a nearby fire drifted across the landing zone. "We felt ecstatic," Hall said, his voice weary after nearly four days with little sleep. "It was just an overwhelming relief to have, what we believed at the time, the last people out." But across the street, at Charity and University Medical, there was no cheering. Patients and staff remained. Hall ordered the helicopters to continue the airlift - at HCA's expense. He said Federal Emergency Management Agency officials were taking over the rescue effort. Late Friday night, Hall said the rescue effort was a small victory, but bigger obstacles remain. Hospitals have to be rebuilt. Patients have to get well. And New Orleans, the immortal and slightly immoral Belle of all Southern Belles, still faces a dark future. "We had to overcome some small hurdles today," Hall said, "but the big hurdles are in front of us." Contact reporter Rocky Scott at (850) 599-2176 or rscott@tallahassee.com.