If you listen closely this Saturday morning, May 22nd, from 9:00-11:00 AM you may hear several unusual reports of destruction, mayhem, and emergencies occurring around Wallingford and all around the city. The network of volunteer HAM operators, the Seattle Auxiliary Communications Service or ACS, will be holding an exercise to test the emergency communication network up to the City’s Emergency Operations Center, EOC. This will be the first time that the neighborhood emergency preparedness groups, like the one we have here in Wallingford, get to break out our communication HUB radios and play along. We have a small network of volunteers that have obtained their FCC radio licenses and had one training class on how to operate the radios. It’s our chance to “run with the big dogs”, practice prioritizing messages that come into the HUBS, get the messages across the community and up to the city in an orderly and efficient manner.
Want to play along? We are meeting at the large picnic shelter at the Good Shepherd Center at 8:30 AM to get some short instructions on how to log incoming information and report it succinctly then we will split up to activate as many of the HUBs as we have volunteers to staff them, maybe 2-3 in addition to the central location at Good Shep.
Got a family radio? You know, the walkie-talkies that everyone carries when they go skiing. Charge it up, break it out on Saturday morning and turn it to GMRS channel 2 to see if you can pick up the signal. PLEASE don’t try to respond, we’re going to have enough challenge managing the flow and voice traffic on our first time out, but if you would like to play along and really throw us a curve ball or two, come to your nearest HUB location with the best disaster scenario you can imagine and see how we handle your emergency.
Please just remember, THIS IS ONLY A DRILL! There really aren’t 35 people trapped in a collapsed building, fire raging out of control from the exploding oxygen tanks, on Stone Way.
Can’t wait!