[SFDXA] Broward Simulated Emergency Test (SET) - Saturday, November 19th

[Robin Terrill]

Please excuse me as I flagged two mailing list to get the word out.  It you
get two or more copies of this please disregard.

 

Robin N4HHP Broward County RACES Officer

 

 

Hello Everyone,

 

Just a friendly reminder . . . . 

 

Broward County ARES/RACES will be participating in the annual ARRL Simulated
Emergency Test on SATURDAY, November 19th from 10:00 am until 11:00 am
followed by a special session of the SEFTN Net.

 

The Resource Net will open at 9:30 am so that you can check in and receive
your "assignment" and tactical call sign.  We will then pass traffic from
10:00 pm until 11:00 am.

 

The setup for this year's scenario begins on Thursday, November 17th,
however, amateur radio operators are not needed until Saturday, November
19th.  The actual drill is on Saturday, November 19th.

 

Read the scenario below put together by Section Manager David Fowler, K4DLF.

 

On Thursday, November 17th, one or more people in each county are identified
as having the Pneumonic Plague and they have come into contact with many
other people.  The health departments in each County get involved and the
CDC is notified.  It is decided that the entire population should be
treated.  Within 48 hours (i.e. Saturday Morning), medical treatment
supplies have arrived from the CDC's National Strategic Stockpile to local
Points of Distribution (PODS).  EOCs have been activated and manned to
support the health departments.  Land lines and Cell Phones are unreliable
because of the overwhelming number of  calls to and from the rest of the
Nation to South Florida since the outbreak has been on the national news.
The EOCs, hospitals, and PODs have all requested amateur radio support to
supplement their other communications.  The Red Cross is providing food
services for the workers at the PODs and is also requesting that hams relay
health and welfare messages from the PODs back to the local Red Cross
Chapter where they will then be handled by the Red Cross.

The local media has been telling people to go to various staging areas
around the County (i.e. shopping malls) where they will be transported by
bus to one of the PODs to get medical treatment.  Some smaller communities
may also have their own "Private" PODs.

Hams will need to help relay messages from the PODs to the EOC, Hospitals to
each other, Hospitals to the EOC, and PODs to the Red Cross (H & W). 

It would also be good to run the Southern Florida HF ARES net for an hour or
so (i.e. 10 am to 11 am) so participating Counties can test HF.

Hams who want to participate should be encouraged to check-in to one or more
resource nets in each County.  Those who want to participate more fully and
pass sample traffic should be assigned a "virtual location" by the resource
net NCS.  Note, except maybe for the EOC and/or Red Cross Chapters, it is
expected that most hams will participate from home.  They can be assigned a
tactical call when they check-in to the resource net and "pretend" to travel
to the specific location.  At that point, they would check-in to the
tactical net using the tactical call assigned to them.

Tactical calls for hospitals can be real hospital names or made up, tactical
calls for PODs could be POD1, POD2, POD3, etc. since the real location of
PODS is kept under tight control by many Counties.  

Each County should determine the time frame and frequencies to use for the
drill.  Since this is not a natural disaster, the repeaters will probably be
working so simplex should not be required.  The resource net for initial
check-ins and assignments and the tactical net for passing messages can be
the same.

More sample traffic will follow but here are a few samples now:

POD1 to EOC       Need additional law enforcement for crowd control

POD2 to EOC       Need additional medical supplies for 2000 more individuals

Hospital Alpha to EOC    Need additional law enforcement for crowd control

Hospital Bravo to Hospital Delta   Can to accept 50 transfer patients?

POD3 to Red Cross   (Typical H & W traffic)

ALL MESSAGES SHOULD INCLUDE THE PHRASE "THIS IS A DRILL" OR SOMETHING
SIMILAR TO AVOID ANY CONFUSION THAT THIS IS NOT A REAL EVENT.  Let's not get
an article in the paper on Sunday about a pandemic in South Florida!

Broward County will use the 146.910 MHz repeater for the drill.  The SEFTN
will be on their normal frequency of 146.790 MHz. 

 

All amateurs are welcome to participate.  It doesn't matter if you are a
current member of ARES/RACES.  Robin Terrill, N4HHP, Broward County RACES
Officer, will coordinate with the RACES staff for this drill.

 

More information to follow as drill time approaches!

 

73,

Carol Sjursen, KJ4AWB

Broward County ARES Emergency Coordinator

954-803-6338 (Cell)

Kj4awb at arrl.net

CSjursen at bellsouth.net