In the nearly 75-year association between the American Red Cross (ARC) and the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), yesterday there was an event without precedent in its scale: ARC asked ARRL for fifty amateur radio operators available for immediate deployment to Puerto Rico for disaster relief communications, especially transmitting health and welfare information.

I'm proud to be a member of ARRL. In less than twelve hours 50 highly qualified hams (General or higher licenses, previous disaster communications experience) responded to the call.

For myself, I am appropriately credentialed in both amateur radio and disaster communications, but I don't have previous experience. I'd also be a bad choice as I have almost no HF experience. Even if I'd been able to volunteer to be deployed, they wouldn't have taken me.