[W2CRA] Upcoming CART / RACES Exercise

[Bill Powell]

Team,

We're looking for RACES operators to provide communications for the CART (County Animal Rescue Team) exercise to be held June 7 at the county fairgrounds.  The exercise will take place between 11am and 4pm. No idea if food / drink will be supplied.

It looks like we'll need at least 4 persons to provide minimum comms: 2 persons at the county EOC and 2 persons at the fairground.

This opportunity is open to ANY RACES operators in the county!

For this drill...
I don't anticipate dealing with a script at our end.  I suspect that the CART coordinator will run his script from the fairgrounds - this time.

There may be CERT involvement.  If there is I expect a great deal of cooperation.  If you have a FRS radio, bring it.  CERT will probably use them on-scene and it's always good to have an extra ear on things.

Also on-scene will be OEM UHF HTs.  I'll provide 2 additional units for use by the on-scene RACES team.

I MOST STRONGLY PREFER that we use the 444.85 repeater for this operation.  Therefore, when you reply to volunteer: PLEASE RSVP! let me know your mobile and portable configurations and capabilities.

Prospectively, in a real event:
 - Animal owners needing to evac their animals would call the 911 center and request animal evacuation.

 - If the EOC is operational the request would go to the CART coordinator who would issue instructions to the CART team at the county fairgrounds sheltering area via RACES.
If not, RACES would get the request directly from 911 to send to the CART coordinator.  This might entail a "shadow" assignment.

 - At the fairgrounds, the CART person in charge at would dispatch the appropriate vehicle / trailer to do the pickup and return.
Because they are not planning to mix animals in a run, there is no present need to provide in-vehicle comms.  Nonetheless, a Mag Mount gain antenna is "a good thing" to have handy.

 - Requests for supplies / support will run "upstream" from the fairgrounds back to the EOC via RACES.

Again, PLEASE RSVP!
Bill Powell - Hunterdon County RACES