Richard Webb was legally blind. Four days after Hurricane Katrina hit, a pregnant woman swam five blocks through floodwater to reach the hospital where he was stationed — and his radio was the reason she and her baby made it out alive.
Webb, NF5B, and his partner Kathleen Anderson, KC0HZU, ran the ham station at LSU Medical Center New Orleans through the entire storm — no power, no running water, an antenna held together with a wire nut.
When the emergency came, the usual nets were dark, so Webb broke into a Gulf Coast storm net on 80 meters and got a Coast Guard rescue in motion from a stranger 1,000 miles away.
This is his story, twenty years later, taken from his own account of the events and the news coverage that ran right after it happened.
CHAPTERS
00:00 She swam five blocks
00:44 Where this comes from
01:02 The storm, and what it took out
01:54 Why a radio still worked
02:31 Richard Webb, NF5B
03:32 Driving in while everyone drove out
04:06 The antenna, and the wire nut
04:53 Two hours
05:46 A stranger in Cleveland
06:24 Off the roof in a basket
06:50 Kathleen, and where Richard is now
07:42 More stories like this one
SOURCES
Richard Webb, NF5B, “Hurricane Katrina 2005,” The HWN Report (Hurricane Watch Net), Vol. IV, Issue 3, March 2025
https://hwn.org/media/pdf/newsletters/The%20HWN%20Report%20Vol%204%20Issue%203%20-%20Mar%202025.pdf
Timothy Harper, “Role Playing,” Delta Sky Magazine, February 2006
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=6835
Barbara W. Carlson, “Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help,” Christian Science Monitor, September 15, 2005
https://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0915/p12s02-stss.html
Rep. Mike Ross, “A Salute to Ham Radio Operators,” Congressional Record — Extensions of Remarks E105, February 8, 2006
https://www.govinfo.gov/link/crec/152/E/105
National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Katrina (updated January 4, 2023)
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL122005_Katrina.pdf
IMAGE CREDITS
Historical photographs via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licenses — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Archival stills and video: FEMA, NOAA, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Air Force, National Hurricane Center — https://www.dvidshub.net/
Additional footage licensed via Envato Elements.
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