Amateur radio emergency exercise held
Central Oregon emergency officials participated in the “Oregon Section Amateur Radio Emergency Service Section Emergency Test” last weekend.
A total of 16 ham radio operators staffed radio stations at St. Charles Medical Centers at Bend and Redmond, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, and the Redmond Fire and Rescue Main Station last Saturday.
Participants were not given details of the simulated emergency until just before the drill began early Saturday morning.
As part of the drill, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management notified local officials about steam and ash eruptions at St. Helens and reported a collapse of the crater dome was imminent. A major ash eruption was predicted to occur within 48 hours.
The main purpose of the drill was to exercise the communication systems used by local agencies during major disasters.
The assumption in this drill was that local agencies lost their day-to-day communications and needed the ham radio operators to relay messages.
The State of Oregon, Deschutes County, and the local ham radio operators have created a system where the hams can take digital messages from local agencies and transmit them by radio to other parts of the country where the internet is still working and put those messages onto the amateur radio net.
An interesting twist to this drill: The ham radio station at St. Charles Bend is undergoing remodeling, so High Desert Amateur Radio Group (HIDARG) had to completely construct a ham radio station outdoors next to the hospital.
Local Agencies/Organizations Participating:
Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office
Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office – Emergency Management
Deschutes County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (DCARES)
High Desert Amateur Radio Group (HIDARG)
St. Charles Medical Center – Bend
St. Charles Medical Center – Redmond
Redmond Fire and Rescue
About ARES:
The Deschutes County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES)/ Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) Unit is part of the Oregon Emergency Services System and the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). It consists of volunteer FCC licensed amateurs trained in the Incident Command System (ICS) as radio operators. The unit is under the direction of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Service Manager. It functions within the National Incident Management System. (NIMS)
The purpose of ARES is to provide emergency communication and support within Central Oregon to served agencies and between the counties and state agencies, and as directed by the governing authorities.
