The scenario was written in August, 2002 before Bob N8TVU was appointed as the Butler County ARES EC September 1, 2002. The scenario is based on a hurricane that came on shore from the Gulf of Mexico and moved north-northeast into the midwest. Four days before the scheduled exercise, ISADORE did just that. Flood warnings were issued for all of Indiana, Ohio, Western Kentucky, as were many states along Isadore's path.
By mid-day Friday the storm passed. Area rainfall was not as heavy as expected, so there were only a few reports of any flood damage.
Saturday morning was a bright sunny day with 65-70 degrees.
The point is that the scenario could happen -- actually, it almost did.
We had 11 participants in the drill. The drill was designed to "hammer" the Net Control Operator with reports from the area, updates from the State EMA office, local EMA office, and two Red Cross Chapters. It was also to fill the room with as much confusion and radio traffic that could mustered. The scenario script included all the mistakes and flaws that we could think of, the "don't ever do this" kind of practices, incorrect assumptions and information about the situation, etc.
Lori W8LKU, our net control operator (NCO) at the net control station (NCS) had been NCO only one other time on a casual net.
Lori did a great job. She was the NCO and logger at the same time!
She started off a little shaky right at first, but her coach Bill Moore W8KVU simply told her- "Don't let them run you -- You're in control."
From that point forward Lori straighted everyone out, slowed them to a pace she was comfortable with, and kept control of the net.
What we had tried to do in this exercise is to simulate 10 operators, in the field, all operators anxiously trying to get multiple messages and reports through to net control, nearly all at the same time.
A camcorder was running in the net control station so the operators in the field could review the causes of some of the delays and response to NCS after the drill.
It is very important for the field operators to visualize what is going on inside the NCS to help them understand the operations and make improvements for next time.
In the debriefing immediately following the drill (also known as Simulated Emergency Test or SET), all of the participants made a large input to the changes needed to make the reporting easier, more efficient, and take less air time.
Matt KB8DDH, Bill W8KVU, Elmer KC8KEY and several other members discussed procedures that need to be implemented and practiced to improve the message handling and to simplify the overall emergency communications information exchanges.
Jim WA8SDF and Red W8ULC had ideas to improve the way the maps can be marked, changed, and kept up to date without damaging the map. They also made suggestions on how to update the map with road closures, restricted areas, bridge outages, utility outages, color coded so at a quick glance, operators can visualize the situation to aid informing EMA, Red Cross, and other officials on the current situation.
I would like to thank the following operators that participated and helped make this a great learning and educational experience:
Jim Barrie - WA8SDF
Elmer Harbron - KC8KEY
Lorie Urschel - W8LKU
Matt Hoffman - KB8DDH
Thomas Collins - KC8UFS
Kim Mackey - KC9BZL
William Moore - W8KVU
Robert Spratt - N8TVU
Rob McPherson - N8OMW
Red Dakin - W8ULC
Raimundo Molina Baez - KC8UTS
Scenario written by:
Robert Spratt N8TVU
bobn8tvu@gmail.com