NEWS

April 2025 Exercise

WEACT and CalDART will be conducting a state wide disaster exercise moving boxes of cookies around the state to exercise procedues and certify DART organizations to CalDART specifications. Also this exercise is a good opportunity for the involved communities and Emergency Operations Centers to see what general aviation disaster response can look like. WEACT and CalDART have responded to small requests for assistance over the last few years but a large scale exercise hasn't been performed lately. The teams need to exercise their procedures to train new members and refresh minds. Here is a link to the email sent out to WEACT members. You are encouraged to join WEACT at the VOLUNTEER tab above or at WWW.CALDART.ORG.

COVID-19

WEACT Status

WEACT leadership has been notified of possible need for WEACT aviation capabilities.
Call for volunteer status has been put out. (3/28/2019)
- Availability: 11 airplanes (Champ to Cessna CJ2) and 8 ground staff (probably more, 3/29/2020)
Santa Cruz County EOC at Level 2 activation - no mission requests so far, capability inquiries have been received and answered (4/3/2020)
Santa Cruz County Health Services COVID-19 Website (4/6/2020)
Santa Cruz County continues to have low case loads and hasn't needed WEACT support as yet. (5/17/2020)
CalDART activity has occurred in May supporting ventilator development and a PPE delivery to Walla Walla WA. (CalDART)

WEACT DART Bay Area Disaster Exercise

WEACT and CalDART worked together to exercise procedures and communications around the Bay Area on October 26th, 2019.

CalDART briefing slides.

WEACT Preliminary Results:

How it went: For us the exercise went really well. We learned a lot in terms of COMM capability and interaction with the Santa Cruz County EOC. Rosemary Anderson was with us all day and showed us the web EEOC tool that she uses and we have access to. Basically fills out all the ICS forms for us as we go. Excellent tool.
Number of ground volunteers: 9
Number of pilots: 6
Number of flights flown: 6
Number of missions flown: 7
Number of passengers flown: 1
Pounds of food collected (if any): none but delivered 260 pound load to Santa Cruz County Second Harvest Food Bank from San Jose.

WEACT is a California business!

Incorporated 27 March 2018, IRS 501.c.3 nonprofit applied for.

WEACT is an IRS 501.c.3 nonprofit! IRS gave WEACT that determination on May 18th, donations are tax deductable. :-)

WEACT Small Scale Exercise on 23 June was covered by both local news stations.

KION Video and Article of 23 June Exercise

Watsonville airlift team hosts full-scale trainingWATSONVILLE >> Looking down from 3,000 feet, Watsonville and the Santa Cruz Mountains lacked the appearance of terrain ravaged by a natural disaster Saturday afternoon.The hum of the single-engine small airplane, a 1964 Beechcraft Bonanza

Watsonville pilots prepare for next natural disaster with earthquake simulation drillA group of Watsonville pilots say they don’t know exactly when the next big earthquake will hit, but they want to be prepared when it does. The Watsonville Emergency Airlift Command Team (WEACT) simulated a 6.9-magnitude earthquake response at the Watsonville Municipal Airport. For the purposes of the exercise, the quake struck in the Santa Cruz mountains, closing local access roads and creating potential damage to the levee system on the Pajaro Rive

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