Hurricane damage to Radio VECA

HCJB Global engineer Steve Sutherland, who directs HCJB Global Voice’s international transmitter site near Quito, Ecuador, will this week be travelling to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua to help make repairs to the Radio VECA (La Voz Evangélica de la Costa Atlántica—Christian Voice of the Atlantic Coast)tranmission system.

The radio station suffered severe damage when Puerto Cabezas was hit almost head on by Hurricane Felix, a category 5 hurricanein a hurricane, on September 4th.

Felix’s winds sent the station’s tower crumpling to the ground, but in four days of downtime - when the electricity supply was also off-line - they managed to weld the tower together and get it standing vertical again. During that time they had also managed to persuad the authorities to get the electricity supply reconnected and so, after four days, the station returned to the air.

However, the power of the station’s signal had to be reduced to 600 watts due to the temporary nature of the repairs.

Steve Sutherland arranged for a friend to locate spare parts in Miami while a Radio VECA staff member sourced new coaxial cable in Managua.

But making contact with the station manager, Pastor Salvador Sarmiento, continues to be difficult with the Nicaraguan telephone system still in turmoil.

An amazing variety of people groups listen to Radio VECA. 150,000 people live in jungle settlements around Puerto Cabezas, many of them descendants of Indians, European settlers and African slaves. They live by fishing, farming and mining.

Miners take their radios to listen to Radio VECA while they work as do the farmers, people in at military posts and people in jails do. Programmes in the local Mískito-language programs are popular with the indigenous people.

Hurricane Felix caused more than 130 deaths while nearly 10,000 homes have been destroyed and another 9,000 severely damaged. An additional 120 people are missing, and an estimated 50,000 people have lost everything they own.