Tennessee Flood Recovery

Jay Diepenbrock. MOVE Volunteer

29 August – The MOVE team, Jay and Alan, were successful in testing a CradlePoint and WiFi Access Point as backfill for the MOVE-1 Internet links, and left that equipment to support the Command Center in Waverly, TN. 

This concluded the team’s Tennessee deployment and they headed out this morning to Texarkana to be staged in order to provide relief after Hurricane Ida passes.

28 August (1:11 PM) Alan and Jay continue to support the Humphreys County emergency managers in their response to the flooding that occurred on August 21. The Public Safety personnel could not perform their work at the Command Center before we arrived, having failed to obtain sufficient data service with a trailer set up by one of the cell phone providers. They’ve been very appreciative of our WiFi Internet access since Wednesday.

The team had the opportunity to see some of the damage and debris in Waverly, the epicenter of the damage. They are now investigating whether their needs can be satisfied using Red Cross equipment to supplement the satellite Internet, as we may soon be re-tasked to the Gulf Coast to respond to Hurricane Ida.

28 AugustWith Hurricane IDA approaching the Louisiana coast, IEEE-USA’s crew will be released from the TN mission and reassigned to respond to IDA.  To keep the truck and crew safe,  it will be repositioned to Texarkana, Arkansas.  The MOVE weather team is monitoring the truck’s whereabouts and weather, so this plan may change. The Red Cross is loading our MOVE-1  truck with equipment that they normally ship so that it will arrive in Louisiana immediately after the storm passes and it is deemed safe.

26 August – Alan Brown and Jay Diepenbrock deployed on August 24 with the MOVE1 truck to Fairview, TN to help with the response to the flooding that occurred in four counties in middle Tennessee on August 21. They drove all day on Tuesday, 8/24 and reported to Red Cross headquarters in Dickson on Wednesday, 8/25.

Local reporting indicates that there are still multiple road closures, and widespread power and cell phone service outages. The team worked at Disaster Relief Operation (DRO) Headquarters on Wednesday, helping people with passwords, installing printers, configuring and issuing cell phones and laptops, and other Disaster Services Technology (DST) tasks. Plans are to deploy with to the Waverly Sheriff’s Office on Thursday (8/26).

24 August – IEEE-USA’s MOVE truck was deployed this morning to Waverly, Tennessee to support Red Cross Operations at the flash flood site. Waverly TN had over 17 inches of rain in one day that caused catastrophic flash flooding with tremendous damage. The members of this deployment team are Jay Diepenbrock and Alan Brown.

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