| How Reliable is your Disaster Plan? |
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| Posted Tuesday February 21, @8:03PM |
Mr. Norm Goodkin, a long-time holder of FCC Extra Class Amateur Radio License K6YXH,(attribution used with permission), has reviewed the CBBS and AABB disaster plans from theperspective of how functional these plans would be, in the event that emergency amateur radiocommunications were required. He offers the following comments in the spirit of qualityimprovement, and he hopes that his comments are not viewed as an outsider taking pot shots atthe excellent disaster plans of both the AABB and CBBS. Read the rest of this article here. |
| From The KY SEC |
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| Posted Sunday January 29, @8:32PM |
I hope no one was surprised by the new Bin Laden video the other day! If anyone actually thought it is over, they were sorely mistaken. If not a terrorist - someone will get mad at city hall or whomever and go on a tear. As long as there are people, there will always be someone (or something) to can make trouble for them. What we do about it as citizens and as amateurs is up to each of us. For the last two months my county has had one ungodly mass of burglaries. Homes, businesses, cars, churches, schools etc. (OK, Call them "equal opportunity" crooks! They stole from everybody!). People were up in arms about what the police were and more like, where not doing about it. Daily officers did the best they could to find clues and gather info. No witnesses came forward; no one said anything other than comments that the police were doing nothing. They finally got them 2 weeks ago and recovered the majority of the items taken. Now people start telling how they saw cars and trucks parked where they should not have been at night, people riding bikes at 3 am with back packs through residential areas etc. I asked some why they never called any of this in. "Didn't this seem odd or out of place to you?" , I questioned several who made the comments. It seems they did not want to call in for fear of; a) appearing stupid or b) because they might have to go to court as a witness. There is an old adage out there something to the effect that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. This can be said of disasters or what have you. If we, as citizens and amateurs do not take a stand, who will? Granted, calling in a jogger or someone walking down the road in the afternoon as a prowler is not likely to be a real threat. Someone messing around on a bike with a back pack at 3 am, could be (unless this is routine for the paperboy!). We live in our neighborhoods. We know what is routine. If we see stuff that looks odd, it probably is. Cars parked where no one should be at 3 am is probably either "Parkers" or criminals. Learning what to look for is mostly paying attention. Be observant, call in unusual activity or things that don't look right for the time and or place. Programs like NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH or HIGHWAY WATCH can improve this. Preparing our families for disasters and terrorist attacks should be our daily business. Plan with your family and make sure they all know the plan. Have you created your family preparedness kit yet? Do you check your gear to be sure it is in good condition on a regular basis? Have you taken training to know what to do for yourself and if you plan to respond to disasters, have you trained to do this too? The training is out there. You just have to go through it. We all know someone or maybe ARE the someone who says, "I don't need any training. If a disaster comes, I'll just pitch in". The day of the untrained volunteer who suddenly feels compelled to help in a disaster is about over folks. New requirements and LIABILITY are placing stricter standards on responders to include volunteers all the time. The untrained are becoming viewed as a gamble many agencies are no longer willing or able to handle. Accountability is the new kid in town. Before long we will see some type of ID program. No ID, no enter! NIMS is sounding the start of a new age for emergency response and disaster operations. The terror attacks, Katrina et al and many other disasters have caused the swing to tighter controls. Those who get through disasters are said to, "survive". Survival means being able to adapt. If we want our families to come through disaster in good shape, then they too must be prepared to adapt to the changes disaster brings. If we want to be a part of the big picture in future response events then we must adapt for this also or be ready to sit on the sidelines. Are you ready for the rigors and responsibilities of disaster conditions and do you have the guts to take an active role in survival? Only you can answer this for yourself. 73, |
| Resolve to be Ready in 2006 |
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| Posted Thursday January 19, @8:42PM |
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On December 31, 2005 nearly half of all adults in this country will make at least one New Year’s resolution. Today, as part of its successful Ready campaign, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security encouraged Americans to make a resolution that is both important and easy to keep, preparing for emergencies. Click here to read the rest of this word document. |
| Alternative Communications For An Emergency |
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| Posted Wednesday September 7, @9:49PM |
Here is an article from the August issue of Fire Engineering about the use of Amateur Radio in an emergency. |
| Tallahassee ham-radio operators take part in a daring helicopter rescue |
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| Posted Wednesday September 7, @9:49PM |
By Rocky Scott Tallahassee ham-radio operators took part in the daring helicopter rescue Friday of about 1,500 patients and staff from two New Orleans hospitals besieged by darkness, dank water and gunfire. "There were a lot of heroes in this operation," said Chuck Hall, 52, the HCA Inc. division vice president in Tallahassee after the evacuation of patients and staff from Tulane University Hospital and Clinic ended because of nearby gunfire. The Tulane facility is an HCA hospital, and Hall said he knew the day after Katrina hammered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that the damage made the evacuation inevitable. "They had no power, very little food and the water was rising because of the levee breaks," Hall said. He quickly chartered about 25 helicopters, including medivac helicopters from Sacred Heart Hospital and Baptist Hospital in Pensacola. But Katrina had laid waste to the Big Easy in a manner few ever would have imagined. There was no power, no clean water, no food and, worst of all, no dependable lines of communications. The first 17 flights out of New Orleans were medivac choppers bringing patients to West Florida Regional Hospital in Pensacola. Each chopper returned with 750 pounds of food and medical supplies for the anxious patients and staff at Tulane. Bob Peterson, chief operating officer of West Florida Regional, said the first efforts to remove patients and staff Tuesday often were dangerous. "The (helicopter) pilots reported five near misses," Peterson said. Bad weather and a jury-rigged landing pad - the hospital's helipad was under water - were playing havoc with flights. Worse still, there was no way Hall and his staff could get information to pilots and no one on the ground to guide them onto the top floor of a four-story parking garage that was serving as a landing zone. The elation after the first lift-off from the beleaguered hospital Tuesday quickly faded, Hall said. Worse, city conditions were deteriorating. Looting and gunfire erupted and 100,000 stranded, scared residents became a force ready to spill into anarchy. Enter the Tallahassee Amateur Radio Club, Florida Division of Emergency Management and some old-fashioned ingenuity. State Emergency Management officials suggested Hall contact the local ham radio club to solve the communications dilemma. Urged by rapidly rising water - 8 feet deep in places - and the growing knowledge that New Orleans had become a drowning pool, the ham operators fashioned a satellite reception device atop an 8-story building in downtown Tallahassee. Then three of them - Theo Titus, Gene Floyd and Bill Schmidt - all boarded a helicopter in Tallahassee Wednesday and headed for New Orleans. Atop the garage at Tulane, they set up a generator-powered ham radio with a satellite uplink. By Tuesday afternoon, the choppers were up and running, and Hall and his co-workers in Tallahassee were able to give directions to pilots, but only on paper. Charlie Lien, a radio club member in the Tallahassee command post, explained the communication system this way: the three operators would radio Tallahassee via the satellite uplink. When the broadcast was received, workers would use two-way radios to get the instruction to HCA personnel in the building - the jury-rigged satellite receiver would only work at the top of the building. HCA officials would decide where the next load of patients was to be taken - most were initially moved to the closed New Orleans Airport - and those instructions were relayed via walkie-talkie back to the top of the building, up to the satellite and down to the top of the Tulane parking garage. But there was one more step. The ham operators couldn't talk with the civilian and military helicopters taking part in the airlift so, as each chopper landed, landing instructions in longitude and latitude were written on a piece of paper and handed to the pilot. Once airborne, the pilots would radio their destination to Federal Aviation Administration officials, who were directing what amounted an aerial version of 5 p.m. rush-hour traffic. Landings were dangerous. Pilots unfamiliar with tall buildings around the garage had to put down on top of a parking garage never intended to serve its makeshift function. Rotor blades whirled dangerously close to buildings. Then, Hall said, another hero emerged. John Holland, a LifeNet employee who was helping with the evacuation, jumped out of a medivac chopper and began working as a flight director, giving pilots signals as they threaded their way down to the concrete deck. "He worked on the deck 36 hours straight," Hall said. "He also was instrumental in relaying information to us about the resources that we needed." Military helicopters, including Blackhawks and a CH-47 Chinook, also joined the airlift. Spirits in the Tallahassee command center soared. The military helicopters could carry more patients and staff than the medivac or other chartered helicopters. But they were dashed when, within hours, two of the helicopters, including the Chinook, were pulled out to help in other parts of a city that was rapidly degenerating into a war zone. "We were tired and exhausted," Hall said. "We could hear the noise and activity in the background." The "activity" in this case meant sporadic gunfire. Fog, rain and darkness were constant companions. But the aerial caravan kept rolling until about 1a.m. Thursday, Hall said. Darkness made it too dangerous to fly. The civilian pilots did not have night goggles and the military pilots, even though they had the night goggles, were disoriented by the dark that had buried the city. By Thursday, it was clear two public hospitals nearby - Charity Hospital and University Medical Center - also were in dire straits. Desperate patients from Charity and staff members there were wading through the floodwater to reach the Tulane facility. Boats from the the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife appeared and helped ferry the critically ill to the garage through water fouled by sewage, debris and bodies. Hall found more heroes in the garage. "They were taking care of patients, often in the dark, with no way of knowing when the next chopper was coming," he said. All through Thursday until about midnight, patients and staff from two hospitals, often in groups of two or three, left the chaos below and were ferried to the airport, to other hospitals, to safety. By Friday morning, Hall said about 300 people, including another 30 patients from Charity, remained. All Tulane patients were safely out. The day brought more heroes. A Sacred Heart medivac worker left his helicopter so a doctor and nurse could board and leave. He was not included in the final headcount and remained alone at the hospital for several hours. Hall said the man finally got the attention of police and was airlifted out late Friday afternoon. As the day wore on, reports of gunfire and advancing chaos strained pilots, patients and personnel. Time was working against the Herculean effort. Pilots can fly only so many hours until they have to rest. Helicopters need gas and maintenance. Sick, frail people cannot last long in stifling heat and humidity. Hall said the warning from the National Guard came shortly before the last helicopter lifted off: Gunfire was less than a mile away. The airlift had to end - now. Smoke from a nearby fire drifted across the landing zone. "We felt ecstatic," Hall said, his voice weary after nearly four days with little sleep. "It was just an overwhelming relief to have, what we believed at the time, the last people out." But across the street, at Charity and University Medical, there was no cheering. Patients and staff remained. Hall ordered the helicopters to continue the airlift - at HCA's expense. He said Federal Emergency Management Agency officials were taking over the rescue effort. Late Friday night, Hall said the rescue effort was a small victory, but bigger obstacles remain. Hospitals have to be rebuilt. Patients have to get well. And New Orleans, the immortal and slightly immoral Belle of all Southern Belles, still faces a dark future. "We had to overcome some small hurdles today," Hall said, "but the big hurdles are in front of us." |
| HDSCS Activity |
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| Posted Wednesday August 24, @8:05PM |
The end of July and beginning of August found HDSCS communicators not only in a major terrorism drill, but in the evening before and the days after that drill, also providing important standby support and emergency communications. HDSCS communicators were requested by St. Jude Medical Center (the hospital where our group began 25 years ago) for the evening of July 27th for an "emergency standby" while phone technicians tried to troubleshoot problems with the new phone system installed just two months earlier (we were on standby then too). The timing was not good with many HDSCS communicators set to participate early the next morning, July 28, in a terrorism drill in Anaheim involving 5 Anaheim hospitals and 4 others in nearby cities. But true to our mission we indeed prepared to support the request. A standby which often involves at least some temporarily loss of phones, is still an emergency response....just one we know about in advance. The standby was set for 9PM to midnight but as many of these events go, midnight came and went. What was thought initially to be a software problem was now thought to be a hardware issue. A few communicators were replaced because of the drill the next morning but our coverage continued in the key areas of the hospital and the shadowing of the administrative nurse. By 3AM on July 28 the initial work was completed but not finished. The phone system was operable but more work was yet ahead, unfortunately. At 6:30AM on July 28 the first HDSCS communicators assisting with the drill were on location providing drill coordination communications for the site. The drill scenario finally started at 8:30AM and during the next 5 hours HDSCS communicators were activated to the participating hospitals, including St. Jude, to provide backup communications related to the scenario of a sarin gas terrorist attack at the Anaheim Convention Center. In the midafternnon, after all 21 communicators had secured and were recharging batteries the disaster/safety coordinator from St. Jude once again contacted HDSCS to request standby communications for that night. The work was scheduled for 9PM-midnight. WA6OPS, the coordinator was finishing packing to head out of town, so the incident was put in the hands of assistant coordinator, Paul Broden, K6MHD. Another three hour event not only went past midnight requiring a rotation of some staff, but during the phone work a major alarm failure occurred. No one is certain what exactly happened, but not only were phones down but the hospital's various back-up systems, including their power based phones, in house walkie-talkies, and Cisco phones failed also. Good thing we were there BEFORE ALL ELSE FAILED. While communications were minimal in the early hours after midnight, some critical tactical communications were handled between the emergency department and some other units during that time. By 6AM on Friday July 29 HDSCS communicators could finally secure. Some had been on site the entire 9 hours and some had been involved in the previous days drill. But it was not over yet. The reinstall of the new phone system still seemed to have some difficulties and on the evening of August 3 HDSCS communicators were again asked to be on site. Finally, we think, Murphy was kept at bay and while the work went a bit past the estimated time, additional communicators did not need to come in and everyone was able to secure in under 4 hours. Twenty HDSCS members participated in the various St. Jude events over the total of 20 hours of support. Six of those members served more than one shift. This was a difficult event to cover because many members were out of the area, had major work commitments limiting time of involvement, and several have recently had serious medical problems that prevented them from being available. I share this event to point out the value and importance of the following:
Our website provides lots of information for hams and non-hams about our activities. Feel free to use it and share it. 73 |
| FEMA Announces Two New Web-Based ICS Courses |
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| Posted Tuesday August 3, @9:56PM |
Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Emmitsburg, MD) for Emergency Preparedness and Response, recently announced that the nation's first responders can now take two new Incident Command System (ICS) courses online through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Virtual Campus. The two courses were jointly developed by FEMA's U.S. Fire Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG). Now available are: For details go to http://training.fema.gov/ and click on Online Training (NETCVirtual Campus). |
| "Radio 'dynamos' help to save lives..." |
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| Posted Wednesday July 13, @9:30PM |
The Medical Services Team has been written up in the North Seattle Herald-Outlook! Take a look at the article here. |
| "Meritorious Service Award" |
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| Posted Sunday June 5, @9:06PM |
The Hospital Disaster Support Communications System is proud to announce that we have been awarded the "Meritorious Service Award" in recognition of our twenty five years of hospital communications support in Orange County. This was one of six service awards given at the 2005 Emergency Medical Services Ceremony that is part of the Orange County Health Care Agency's EMS week events. In presenting this award, Dr. Bruce Haynes, medical director of EMS, recounted HDSCS's growth from one hospital twenty five years ago to the support now of 33 medical facilities. He also cited the 87 emergency callouts, 69 stand-bys, and over 130 drills to which HDSCS has responded. In addition he emphasized that HDSCS communicators have provided "countless hours" of volunteer time and used personal radio equipment to back-up the hospitals' and EMS emergency communications needs. 73 |
| New FEMA Training Modules |
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| Posted Thursday May 26, @7:23PM |
Release Date: May 19, 2005 FEMA ANNOUNCES TWO NEW WEB-BASED INCIDENT COMMAND SYSTEM (ICS) COURSES Emmitsburg, MD - Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response, announced today that the nation's first-responders can now take two new Incident Command System courses online through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Virtual Campus. "Over 225,000 of our nation's response personnel have completed Incident Command System and National Incident Management System courses currently available online through the FEMA Virtual Campus," said Brown. "President Bush directed that a comprehensive National approach to incident management, applicable to all jurisdictional levels across functional disciplines, be developed. I am pleased to announce these new courses which will train our first responders in that National Incident Management System." |
| HDSCS Update |
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| Posted Thursday January 20, @8:33PM |
Greetings from sunny California, at least for now. Just an update for you that are interested in HDSCS and Amateur Radio support for hospitals. HDSCS did respond to Kaiser Permanent Hospital Anaheim at their request when concerns developed about the Prado Dam. We did respond on an emergency basis but our role was to be on standby with the hospitals staff at the hospital EOC. Other than helping clarify some information for the hospital we didn't handle any emergency communications. So why were we there? The hospital knows our group and they know the importance of back-up communications. Having us there gave them an extra level of confidence should there be flooding that could isolate their facility or should an evacuation be ordered. It is our mission-backing up communications critical to patient care. Don't ever underestimate the value of "being there just in case". The communicators that responded were well prepared with their own equipment, portable and in their vehicles, and prepared personally should they have to stay. And a good thing. Even though Kaiser has an installed station, it is on the lobby level which could make it more prone to flooding. And on the day we were there the microphone failed at one point. The operator in the command post had his own equipment to use until it was determined there was a wire that came loose and he was able to fix it. We ALWAYS come prepared. After doing this for 25 years we have learned to NEVER count on any installed equipment. We have a brief summary on the website. Feel free to check it and use info from it any time. Should you use any material from it we just ask that you credit the site. The site is updated after any activity of the group or there is new info to share.
73 |
| Ham Radio in the Funnies |
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| Posted Saturday December 11, @5:30PM |
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| Hurricanes Charley & Frances: Advice From the Front Lines |
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| Posted Monday November 15, @6:37PM |
"As many of you know, your brothers and sisters in the Florida emergency management community have been quite busy and will continue to be until the end of November 2004. This article contains some useful bits of information and advice that I have learned." |
| Hurricane Tests Emergency Agency At Time of Ferment |
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| Posted Sunday October 3, @9:02PM |
By ROBERT BLOCK Three months ago in Tampa, Fla., the man in charge of America's emergency response system stood before the rescuers now clawing through hurricane wreckage to deliver reassurances about the U.S. agency's health. The once-independent Federal Emergency Management Agency had become a tiny sliver of the Homeland Security Department, prompting concern it was being marginalized. "FEMA is alive, kicking and doing well," Michael Brown told the Florida governor's annual hurricane conference. Now, in the aftermath of one of the worst U.S. natural disasters in recent years, Mr. Brown has to prove his point. Hurricane Charley, a Category Four storm with winds of 145 miles an hour, left at least 16 dead and thousands homeless as it blasted through Florida's west coast and on up the state before heading out to sea near Daytona Beach in the east. The hurricane crashed back onto land again in South Carolina before fading. |
| Washington Statewide Homeland Security Update Newsletter |
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| Posted Friday July 9, @10:59PM |
We are pleased to provide you the June 2004 issue of the Washington Statewide Homeland Security Update Newsletter. This newsletter may also be accessed on the Washington Military Department State Emergency Management Division website at: http://emd.wa.gov/site-general/wahsas/wa-hsas-idx.htm |
| National Incident Management System/National Response Plan |
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| Posted Wednesday May 5, @9:36AM |
Here is a copy of the new National Incident Management System as published by the Department of Homeland Security. This document dictates how all emergency responder agencies will operate from now on. Pages 95 and 96 govern the operation of commications nets, such as is provided by the Medical Services Team. In accordance with the new NIMS plan, the Medical Services Team will be implementing a three-tier communcations plan in the near future. Also, here is a draft copy of the National Response Plan, also published by the Department of Homeland Security. This document will be the lead plan for the federal government when responding to state and local disasters. |