[IMC-US] Houston IMC radio for Katrina?

[Lorie Kramer]

Hye,

It's Lorie from HIMC. We've been busting ass and most
of us have not been able to do much but juggle balls.

You'll have to excuse me for not being able to provide
more complete details, I've been pretty much
compartmentalized the last couple of days.
I'll try to throw something together worth posting
before I crash tonight.

These are the kids I know on the job that I've been
working with. 
Jim Ellinger of Austin Airwaves, and Tish from HIMC,
Liz (?) from D.C., and Herb from here in Houston. I
know Hannah is here, but I haven't seen her. We have
also gotten support from Pacifica station KPFT, which
is the station we broadcast our weekly 1/2 hour
program on.

This is what I know.
We have procured 3 emergency licenses from the FCC to
set up low power FM stations. That has been good since
Monday. We got OK and paperwork from Harris County,
and the City of Houston. Harris county is the agency
in charge of the Astrodome, not the City of Houston.

Monday, we started gathering equipment and trying to
brainstorm and take action on how to come up with
radios. Liz & I packed up the audio station at our
space and waited for word from Jim & Tish of when to
head over to the dome. They were doing the legwork
with the various agencies. We thought we'd be able to
get into the Dome, possibly that afternoon or evening.
Riiiiiiight.

The entry got stalled with a Harris county official
named Rita Obey. She was somewhere on the bottom runs
of the ladder of the JIC (Joint Information Center). 
There were concerns that a) people would fight over
radios (sigh) and b) if we gave radios to the masses
that many of the undesireables would tune to gangsta
rap instead of our broadcasts and trouble would ensue.
   arrggggggg

we were told that we would have to come up with 10,000
radios to get things going. needless to stay that
stopped us from getting on the air Monday.

Monday night we still could not even get access to the
Dome to begin to build the station.
We were toally legal, had jumped through all the hoops
and had the "support" of all agencies involved.
But we had to come up with 10,000 radios.

We began making calls, I set up a radio donation
program at the three Whole foods stores here and KPFT
promo'd for radio & battery donations at the station,
which was responded to, but I don't know how many were
received. I saw two big boxes full this morning.


Tuesday I had to work my "real" job and was out of the
loop until about 1pm. At that time I found out we had
gotten the radios. Someone had agreed to buy them for
us, but I found out later there was some kind of
problem deal going on with the donation, but that will
have to come from one of those who worked on that, I
don't know enough to comment. 

I don't know how it shook out, but the end result of
it was we got the radios.  We tried to get 2000
batteries. That turned out to be another issue with
the damn financial institutions so we only got out of
Fry's with the 348 batteries I managed to get the
store to give us.   arrrg again

I went before Houston City council this morning and
spoke about what was happening. Mayor pro-tem Alvarez
got an aide to me immediatly, she took names and
numbers and said she was going to get right on it.

Chickpea (Renne Feltz, KPFT news director, y'all know
and love Chickpea) was down at council too, the
Francis Newton thing is down to a week, so there's
lots going on at the moment.

Chickpea told me when I got out of council that Jim
and crew had gotten permission to get in. 
Meanwhile the other kids were getting the rados and
fielding media calls from all over the place.
I know the LA times called, the Village Voice, and
that NPR did a story on this.
They went on Democracy now this morning.
I don't know the pooint where the story begins, it's
about 75% into the program.
Here's the archive link

http://www.kpftx.org/archives/kpftsignal/mp3/050907_090002dn.MP3

I had to leave the rest for the night as I'm a single
mom and it's a school night and I don't have a baby
sitter.

My last report was at 5:00 pm. We are in...Jim was at
the Dome.
We have one transmitter here, a bigger one is on it's
way here from Austin. The HIMC audio station equipment
has been moved to the dome, Tish has been on the phone
non-stop. I think Hannah is with Jim, but I'm not
certain.

Nick..if you're out there, are you out there?  :-)
Can you fill in my blanks?

Hopefully we'll be on the air tomorrow.
I'm stuck at work until 2 I'm hoping to be able to get
over there after that. 
I am intentionally not calling Jim or Tish because
they are overwhelmed at the moment, so all I can reply
is my own experience.

I can work something up and post it, but it will be a
little while since there's some stuff I have to do
first.  I need to go. 

Rst assured, we are ABSOLUTEly making this happen and
it's an incredible thing.
If I have never told you before, it is such a joy and
honor to be a part of the IMC organism.
We be doin' it.

later,
Lorie
HIMC, in collaboration with Austin Airwaves, the
Prometheus project and a whole lot of other very FINE
human beings.....including YOU!



--- onto <onto at riseup.net> wrote:

> So Josh, Evan, and Todd know a little about this.
> And Anthony and Hannah 
> from prometheus can tell us whats happening. No-one
> from Houston IMC?
> 
> I'll call tomorrow and transcribe what I'm told.
> Anyone else want to also?