A few smaller areas have not yet reported numbers. Overall, the count for participants in all of Contra Costa County was around 346 people. According to Julie Luckenbach, CERT registrar and instructor, LARIG had uploaded and practiced Fldigi for this exercise and now has four to five strong users, which will be key in helping the EOC operate in a real disaster and communicate with the county. The other six messages were triaged and considered not necessary to send to the county. Fldigi does not require internet, so is particularly important for emergencies when internet service might not be available. No city officials were involved in this particular drill, and 11 messages were successfully sent to the County Emergency Operations Center using Fldigi, which is digital messages sent via radio frequencies. Thirty-four volunteers in Lamorinda participated, including this reporter, with 17 messages successfully received by the city EOC which was staffed by members of the Lamorinda Area Radio Interest Group (LARIG). A windshield survey is a quick drive through an area, to identify immediately visible damage. Field CERT teams were directed to gather, conduct windshield surveys and/or fill out their local rapid needs assessment forms, and communicate simulated messages to their CERT division incident commands or directly to their EOCs to provide rapid situational awareness to city and county officials prioritizing mass threats to life and major infrastructure failures. Members of Lamorinda CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) joined many other CERT organizations throughout Contra Costa County and partnered with the California Office of Emergency Services, the Contra Costa Sheriff's office and the County's Community Warning System to conduct an emergency communications exercise - Light Up The San Francisco Bay.Įarly in the morning, volunteers were told that there had been an earthquake along the North Hayward Fault with the epicenter in the San Pablo Bay. Well, not really, but Lamorindans with active imaginations reported this and other casualties as part of a county-wide emergency drill. 16, as the Bay Area was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake, a gas station in Moraga fell into a sinkhole. There are more examples, but those are the three big ones which come to mind based on my experience with ARES and ARC in disaster.Lamorinda CERT team prepares to participate in a Bay-Area-wide drill. explains how D-STAR was used in 2007 to improve comms in severe flooding in Western Oregon, about 30 klicks from where I sit. Just had an exercise last month where hams on mountain bikes were asked to offroad and do that. Some places need to survey vulnerable infrastructure, and a ham with digital camera capability can deliver pictures back to where the Internet works so engineers can look at, say, a dam face, or a bridge support. Packet and other modes provide 'security through obscurity' and are more popular in sending long lists of data.

Therefore, early in the game, packet has become popular to get that declaration to the state capital.Īlthough HIPPA does not apply to amateur radio (as operators are not healthcare providers), there's still a great desire not to reveal names and other details of aid recipients. In the US, disaster declarations need to be approved and that declaration with approval must be transmitted to a state EOC before state aid can be approved.

County using fldigi