The morning of Saturday, September 3, 2016, is certainly one for the books for a couple of reasons. Of course the big story was the California-sized earthquake that struck the Pawnee, Oklahoma area and shook the western portions of our County Warning Area out of bed shortly after 7 o’clock. At 5.6, this ties the all-time record quake magnitude for Oklahoma set back in 2011*. Immediately following the main shock, several hams began exchanging information across the Southwest Missouri Regional Skywarn linked repeaters, and, after just a couple of minutes, it became clear that the shaking was worse the further westward you went. While this wasn’t good news for the weary residents of northern Oklahoma, for those of us pondering the potential time bomb that may lie underneath the boot heel of Missouri, it served as a small relief.
As several aftershocks, some greater than Magnitude 3.5, continued to drive the impromptu Saturday morning round table, a fairly significant band opening seemed to be in place on 2 meters. Several long distance contacts were made across our linked system including a station in Bartlesville, Oklahoma – just 50 miles from the main quake’s epicenter. Later on another amazing contact was made by a ham using an HT and located near Montrose Lake, Missouri. This is just a few miles east of Clinton and nearly 100 miles from the 145.49 repeater in Fordland! This station was located high up on a power plant smokestack with an HT running 8 watts. The real fun was when he was able to knock his power down to 1 watt while continuing to be full quieting into the repeater.
Saturday morning’s excitement reminds us that even though we are weather spotters who can understandably let our guard down on dry, sunny, 80-degree days, the fact remains that disaster can strike without notice. With past and present quake swarms in neighboring Oklahoma and Arkansas along with our friend, New Madrid, to our east, we can’t afford to be complacent. So, no matter what the forecast is, keep those battery packs charged and check into our weekly nets. Keep regular amateur radio operation within your routine, because, as we were reminded last Saturday, you just never know!
* UPDATE 09/08/2016: The United States Geological Survey on Wednesday, September 7, 2016 upgraded this earthquake to a Magnitude 5.8. Please click here for the updated story.