4. November 30, 2002
This drill was a field exercise with SKYWARN reporting high winds and 3 unconfirmed tornado touch downs in Butler County.
The Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Team was activated to support the Red Cross Damage Assessment Teams, the Emergency Management Agency's (EMA) Emergency Operations Center (EOC) ,the State EMA Office in Columbus, and the Butler County Sheriff's Main Dispatch and 911 Center. EMA was supported with needed information and updates and liaison with the State EMA Office in Columbus was via an HF net.
Purpose of this drill:
Make the Net Control Operator take control of the situation by setting up a callout/notification routine.
Assigning resources as they became available, and assigning Tactical Call Signs to each of them.
Handling of Emergency, Priority, Health & Welfare Reports and formal traffic.
Establish Damage Evaluation Teams for Red Cross, assign a location for them to go to, assign a tactical call sign to them, and relay the team's information back to the served agency.
Maintain open communications with all six agencies involved in the drill.
Sort out the request for assistance for EMS, Fire & Rescue per jurisdiction.
Control and maintain the net(s), as needed.
Obstacles that were included in the drill:
Harmful and intentional interference
Bogus units checking in or requesting emergency responders
Reports of events at intersections or in area's that don't exist.
Three operators responded directly from their homes to their pre-designated assignments at the EMA, Red Cross, and the Amateur Radio Communications Center at D. Russel Lee.
The first activation came from Red Cross needing three teams of damage evaluators to perform preliminary evaluation of the three reported areas effected by the tornados.
Damage reports included residential, commercial, township, county road, state road, and bridge damage. The airports in Hamilton & Middletown also reported damage.
Hamilton airport was in the direct path of one funnel and sustained damage to the runway, navigational approach lighting, and tower. The damage would takes 3-4 days to repair, suspending air traffic into or out of Hamilton Airport. Middletown airport had several large trees and debris from the local trailer park that would take much time to clear.
Damage evaluations and reports went to both the EMA and Red Cross at the same time.
EMA assigned resources to assist with checking and clearing the building to ascertain no one was in them.
Red Cross opened a shelter for the stricken area and needed an amateur radio operator, on location, for passing formal Health & Welfare messages, and shelter needs.
EMA needed communications support for two Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) Teams that were flown in from outside the area to check collapsed buildings and search for survivors.
A hospital net was opened so field operations could keep track of bed availability at the local hospitals and notify the Emergency Room (ER) staff of inbound injured persons and the extent and type of injury. Operators were also keeping track of "walk-ins" transported by privately owned vehicles as part of the overall accountability of the residence involved.
Another operator was assigned to his own home well outside of the stricken area to provide phone service passing and accepting messages via telephone, email, the internet and via other means not readily available from within the county due to the public utilities being disrupted.
The Search And Rescue Communications Officer was able to keep the EMA and Sheriff's Office up to date on all their findings, and were able to confirm reported damage via the field report units. The communications network also allowed USAR teams to request additional resources, equipment, and special needs from the scene with a nearly immediate reply and estimated time of arrival.
Problems that had to be addressed and resolved during the drill:
Content of traffic passed over the radio from the scene.
Transportation of outside resources arriving at the airport, to the scene, with dogs.
Handling harmfull, deliberate, and fictitious transmissions.
Having enough resources available to fill the served agencies request.
Prioritizing the urgency of an agency's request versus available operators
Field units developing radio problems.
The exercise was approximately 2 hours in duration. This was a great learning experience for all of the operators including the scenerio writer.
For any additional information or inquiry about this exercise, feel free to contact:
Rob McPherson - N8OMW - n8omw@hotmail.com
Bob Spratt - N8TVU - bobn8tvu@gmail.com
This senerio written by: Rob McPherson N8OMW