[Bgmrc-list] Saturday's SET Drill Report

[David Benoist]

Below is the SET report from the drill that we conducted Saturday morning.  It was an unannounced drill conducted to minimally participate in the annual SET.  It was also designed so that it required no one to leave home and consume more than a few minutes of their time and to use no gasoline.

I made 19 phone calls using the ARES roster.  Three were unavailable and 2 were out of town or the area but answered their phones.  Thanks for your participation and understanding.  We did better than expected for a Saturday morning when most are in the early stages of personal down-time.

Kudos to Lynn (KN4YZ) who came up with the approach for doing this drill and generating SET credit and participation at little personal cost.

Fayette-Coweta ARES 2008 Simulated Emergency Test

Fayette-Coweta ARES conducted a Simulated Emergency Test on Saturday, October 04, 2008.  The drill started at 0900 and lasted until 1015.  The drill was not pre announced to ARES members as one of the goals was to get a realistic feel for how many ARES assets we could find with no notice.  Deployments were simulated due to the Metro-Atlanta fuel crisis.  The scenario involved a communications outage at the Fayette County 911 center.  The EMA requested ARES assets deploy to various fire stations as well as the 911 center and EOC.

The drill started at 0900 with a simulated message from the EMA reporting a 911 communications outage and a request for ARES members to deploy to County fire stations and the 911 center.

Initial attempts to contact hams on the 145.210 repeater did not meet with any success.  Changing to the 147.165 repeater and linking the two SKYWARN hub repeaters met with better success.  While KN4YZ, Lynn ran the net, AG4ZR, David, EC, attempted telephone contact with ARES members on our roster.  At 0930, a general email activation was sent to the group.  

The drill was terminated at 1015.  By this time, we had received checkins from 15 Fayette-Coweta ARES members.  

There are a total of 15 fire stations throughout Fayette County.  The County has 9 fire stations, Fayetteville has 2, and Peachtree City has 4.  Our goal was to have as complete a coverage as possible.  Although simulated, we had complete coverage of all County fire stations by 1140.  The EOC was covered by 1010, and the 911 center by 1040.  One member covered one of the Fayetteville fire stations.  The EC remained unassigned in order to provide strategic direction. Two members checked in, but were unable to deploy due to other commitments.

Thank you to the following for your participation in the 2008 SET:
AG4ZR, David; KN4YZ, Lynn; WI4R, Lee; KI4ASK, Joe; W4JB, Jim; KI4QLW, Chris; KI4WNA, Sam; KI4NGD, Huey; WD4GTY, Lewis; KI4DEM, Dwight; WD4OAZ, Matt; KD4YDC, Robert; KG4FHC, Terry; AI4UW, Ken; & KI4SZP, Alan.  Your participation helped make this drill a success!

Lynn, KN4YZ
Asst EC, Net Control