[FLARES] Tactical First In Team Exercise - April 9, 2009

[Ron Wetjen]

Sarasota County held its annual "Tactical First in Team" (TFIT) exercise 
  on April 9, 2009.  ACS members, as well as licensed CERT members, 
participated in the exercise.

The primary goal of the TFIT teams is to deploy after a storm passes, 
and facilitate the opening of major roadways to allow the movement of 
emergency relief efforts into and within Sarasota County and its 
municipalities, and address any emergency conditions that are 
encountered while performing this mission.

The teams assembled at pre-determined "staging areas" throughout the 
county, and at their specified deployment time, would make their way to 
the "drill site" located on property at the Sarasota County Landfill. 
Using repeaters, amateurs provided communications between the teams and 
the "Command Post" while enroute to the drill site.  Once the teams were 
staged and ready to perform their tasks, they were switched over to a 
simplex "tactical" channel.

Some of the things the teams encountered, were persons trapped and 
injured in a vehicle with utility pole and live wires touching the 
vehicle, a HazMat situation, obstacles in the roadway that needed to be 
cleared, and a knife attack/hostage situation.  (Fortunately, the real 
weapons were stowed away, and dummy weapons were issued!)

Several minor issues came up during the exercise ... some of the teams 
didn't have, or use, FRS radios to communicate between team members (law 
enforcement used 800 direct channels, but that left no way to talk to 
other team members).  One of the Police Vehicles that does have ham 
gear, has an antenna mounted on a fiberglass/plastic shell.  This does 
not work very well as a ground plan, so they had difficulties getting 
into the repeater.  Fortunately, they were staged close to the drill 
site, that they could be worked on simplex.  That radio also needs some 
reprogramming to get "current" with what we're using.

Portable "jump kits" and mag mount antennas were issued to those folks 
who needed them, and 2 "jump kits" and portable antennas/tripods were 
set up for the stations inside the "Command Bus".  We were approached 
about getting a dual-band ham rig installed in the command bus for 
future use, and we'll be working with the Sheriff's Department to get 
that done.

All in all, a good exercise ... and our "first timers" did a great job!

Those participating in the exercise, were:

Alex, KJ4JCD (1st exercise)
Bob, KA4BOB
Bob, K9SRQ
Joe, WA1VNP
Gene, KJ4GST (1st exercise)
Rich, KJ4KHJ (1st exercise, CERT)
Ed, K8DSS
Dennis, KI4DLD
Harry, KJ4HUP (CERT observer)
Tim, KJ4ICT (1st exercise, CERT)
Ron, WD4AHZ

Thanks to those folks who helped.

Ron, WD4AHZ
EC, Sarasota County