Volunteers risk their lives during Sedgwick County storms

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — As Kansans prepare for the chance of severe weather, a group of volunteers will be standing by, ready to be dispatched as storm spotters. They are amateur radio operators who risk their lives to save others.

As part of National Volunteer Week, Sedgwick County Emergency Management pointed out the work the volunteers do.

“The standard bearer for our volunteers is our Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service team which was founded locally in the 1950s,” Cody Charvat, Sedgwick County Emergency Management operations officer, told the Sedgwick County Commission on Wednesday.

R.A.C.E.S. (RAY-seez) is a program the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency started in 1952. R.A.C.E.S. provides backup communication in support of emergency management.

“Our R.A.C.E.S. team not only provides that critical backup, but they also serve as our storm spotters and in other roles as we ask them to,” Charvat said. “It is especially appropriate to recognize them today since yesterday was World Amateur Radio Day.”

The longest-serving member of the local team is James Broadhead, who has been volunteering for nearly 60 years.

“I’m very proud of our local team as many, including myself, have risked life and limb over the last 50+ years to give advance warning of tornadoes in Sedgwick County,” Broadhead told commissioners. “Most citizens of this county are not aware of our organization or our mission. I firmly believe that we have saved many lives over the last half-century in Sedgwick County.”

Charvat agreed. He said that when severe weather starts to threaten Sedgwick County, R.A.C.E.S. members take up positions across the county and sometimes find themselves right in the middle of the bad weather. They face danger from hail, lightning, flooding, high wind, and tornadoes to get needed information to the Emergency Operations Center. From there, the information is relayed to the National Weather Service and its media partners.

Charvat recalled the tornado on April 14, 2012. The storm system moved from Sumner County into Sedgwick County.

“The NWS was concentrating on one area of the storm where the rotation had been, and it was moving right toward the airport, forcing them to take shelter,” he said.

The county’s R.A.C.E.S. team was among the first to report a new area of rotation had developed to the east and was dropping a new tornado northeast of Haysville.

“What they were reporting became known as the Oaklawn tornado,” Charvat said. “There was significant damage that night, especially in the Pinnaire mobile home park, but thankfully no fatalities, thanks in large part to spotters like our R.A.C.E.S. team who saw it coming.”

Sedgwick County honored these R.A.C.E.S. members for their years of service:

James Broadhead, 58 years

Dennis Duty, 44 years

Harold Teachman, 40 years

John Minor, 39 years

Ken Thompson, 32 years

Jim Hand, 31 years

Mike McElroy, 30 years

Mark Spaulding, 22 years

Rodney McDaniel, 21 years

KSN’s Chief Meteorologist, Lisa Teachman, is Harold Teachman’s daughter. As his daughter and as KSN’s Chief Meteorologist, she knows trained storm spotters can be life-saving.

“Storm spotters are the eyes and the ears of any storm,” she said. “We have all this technology that we can use to analyze the atmosphere, but having somebody on the ground is critical to verifying that information.”

Charvat said there are other trained storm spotters, such as volunteer firefighters, but R.A.C.E.S. is the only spotter group directly under Emergency Management.

“These guys have no motivation to go out there and put themselves in harm’s way other than to protect their community in which they live,” he said. “We really appreciate that service especially.”

Charvat said Emergency Management has 70 volunteers who saved the County nearly $150,000 in service hours and labor last year.