[CTSARA] SARA Meeting with City Of Stamford

[ranceiii at aol.com]

Congratulations John, Ernest and Frank, this is a major coup!
73,
T


-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Perelstein <jon.perelstein at gmail.com>
To: Stamford Amateur Radio Association <ctsara at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thu, Jul 14, 2011 5:50 pm
Subject: [CTSARA] SARA Meeting with City Of Stamford


And in the "another piece of good news" department, I'm pleased to announce
hat representatives of the SARA club (Ernest, Frank, and I) had a meeting
ast week with the Stamford Mayor's Special Assistant for Emergency Planning
 a guy named Chris Munger who came to the City with a resume in emergency
perations management (including Director of Emergency Operations for Orange
ounty NY) as well as 20+ years as an FBI agent and about 10 years as a
arine Corps officer.
I think it's fair to say that the City was not aware of our size,
apabilities, and experience -- and he was very pleasantly surprised to hear
hat we had to say as well as the feedback he got from the hospital people
egarding our performance on the Bennett Cancer Center bike rides.
The City is getting serious about emergency management and response.  They
re building a new EOC in Government Center, finishing the Sterling Farms
ackup EOC, and making major upgrades in the City's emergency response
lans.  Also, they are in the process of implementing a Community Emergency
esponse Team (CERT -- http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/) and view CERT as
he mechanism through which volunteers will be trained, managed and respond
o emergencies under the direction and control of the EOC.  Using the March
010 storm as an example, they envision that CERT would have been activated
o put damage assessment teams out across the city to provide reporting on
locked streets, areas without power, damage to homes, and flooding.
The City would like the SARA club to participate in its emergency operations
n two ways:
1.  Have as many SARA members as possible join CERT and become part of the
esponse teams (especially as the leading communications providers within
ERT), and
2.  Have the SARA club help them with establishing communications facilities
or use in emergencies, including help in defining the CERT communications
acilities, upgrading ham equipment at Government Center, participating in
ther projects that come up (e.g., a backup county-wide communications
acility and a backup communications facility to Farmington and Hartford),
nd then staffing the equipment as necessary.
As a result of our meeting last week, SARA has been invited to participate
n the planning of the new Stamford EOC and I participated in our first
eeting earlier this week.  It was an interesting experience since the other
embers of the team include a police captain, a fire captain, the City's
echnology director (who, by the way, has ultimate control over the Sterling
arms communications facility), the City's facilities manager, the city's
hief of traffic management, and a reprentative from the city's hospital
orporation.  As a side benefit, we have been promised that the City will
ake arrangements to give us better access to our Sterling Farm repeaters,
ill work with us to get a better location for our backup repeaters at the
ospital, and will give us a bigger meeting room (probably the EOC) for our
onthly meetings.
I'm very excited about this progress in our relations with the city, and
specially about the opportuntity for us to participate in CERT.  As Tony
'Connor (a member of New Canaan CERT) will tell you, CERT provides the
raining and structure so that we can respond effectively (and safely) in
mergencies.
All of this will of course come slowly since the City is just beginning the
ffort to upgrade its emergency operations.  For example, they have only
ecently started the process of forming a CERT so it may be some time before
e see it start to take volunteers.  However, we are in a position to make
ure that the City has an appreciation for the SARA club and what it can do
or the City.
73s
on
B2RYV
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