[W1SMH] Fwd: Boston Marathon Communications Posture Update

[RayCord]

Ray Cord
Deputy Director 
Norton EMA-CERT
508-726-1054 Cell

On Sunday, April 15, 2018, MEMA Region 2 RACES/ACS <wc1mab at gmail.com> wrote:

                                                                                
      

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Hello to all,

    As many, if not all, of you are now aware, tomorrow morning and throughout the day will be the running of the 2018 Boston Marathon. As the marathon course does not pass through any MEMA Region #2 communities, the Regional Operations Center in Bridgewater will not be standing up any special operations or activating the radio room for the event. Having such a large scale event, however, does not come without any impacts to our area. Due to the large number of amateur radio operators assisting in the event, many of our amateur radio assets will be out of their normal areas and will likely have greatly modified response times should they be needed in their home jurisdictions. Also, many MEMA assets and personnel are going to be deployed to other parts of the state in support of this large event and they may also have greatly modified response times. 

    ARES members not directly involved in Marathon Operations are asked to be on STANDBY STATUS from 6AM to 7PM Monday April 16th to assist with any significant issues outside of the Boston Marathon that may require Amateur Radio Emergency Communications support and for any unexpected issues on the Boston Marathon route. More information is available in the latest update from Rob Macedo (KD1CY) on the WX1BOX web page at http://wx1box.org.

*** In the event of an incident involving the Boston Marathon operators are reminded NOT to self deploy to the affected area. Such self deployments can hinder the emergency response and can place operators FURTHER away from the places they may badly be needed. If such an event occurs, operators are asked to switch to their assigned RACES frequencies, establish a standby net with a local net control operator, and wait for instructions. ***

    During our monthly training nets we have established that the State EOC can effectively check into at least one of our net repeaters and WX1BOX can check into all of them. By this means instructions and information will be disseminated to the Sector Nets if needed and when operationally possible. 

     I will be actively working an assignment at the finish line of the marathon and will likely be slow to respond to phone, email or text messages, but if you try to reach me I will do my best to respond as quickly as I can. 

    I look forward to talking to everyone during the next RACES/ACS net night on the first Monday in May. Thank you all in advance for helping us maintain a solid operational posture during this years marathon event. 

Sincerely,

Michael Leger (N1YLQ)
MEMA Region 2
RACES / Aux Emergency Communications Officer
C: 386-566-7666