The introduction to a 2012 EmComm Plan of the Club stated:
| There is broad knowledge and wide agreement that emergency communication is the fundamental reason the FCC provides protection to the amateur radio spectrum through FCC Rule 97.1. In return, amateur radio (and the RCT) accepts a generalized obligation to acquire operating skills, organizational structure and equipment in order to provide an emergency communication service to governmental agencies and the community at large on request and within established regulations and policies. However, the RCT’s own Corporate Articles are more specific. In the RCT Articles of Amendment, Article Two – Purpose, there is the following quote: |
|
“This Corporation has been formed for the following purposes: |
But actually, what role will RCT members play in the event of a disaster? Those members wishing to assist local public officials with radio communications in emergency events should become active participants in ARRL's program named "Amateur Radio Emergency Services," commonly called ARES. In Pierce County, hams can join ARES via the local group's website: PierceCountyARES.net. Members of our local ARES group (sometimes called Western WA District 5 ARES) train to become effective participants in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), an approach to incident management developed in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). The NIMS system is used throughout the US in emergency incidents. A key component of NIMS is the Incident Command System (ICS), used to large and small incidents. ARES members train in the use of various ICS forms and radio modes (especially Winlink) for radio communication in support of public officials managing an incident.
In Washington state, ARES members willing to work radios in the county's Emergency Operations Center or to be deployed away from their homes must become registered as WA State Emergency Workers, requiring completion of several FEMA online courses that address the NIMS and ICS systems. Presently (August 2024) in Pierce County ARES, we have about 140 registered Emergency Worker members, and about 180 at-home-only members.
In a local or regional emergency incident, hams who have not joined ARES and trained to be proficient in the tasks and procedures prescribed by NIMS and ICS likely will not be used by public officials or ARES leaders. However, another aspect of EmComm is assisting disaster survivors to notify their distant loved ones about their health and welfare. Hams who are not active members of ARES can use their skills and equipment to provide health and welfare radio messages for those survivors. The EmComm articles in the March through June 2024 issues of The Logger's Bark describe the "I am Safe" health and welfare messaging system. Those specific articles are downloadable below.
All members of the club are encouraged to become able, following a disaster, to provide health and welfare messages for their own neighbors and survivors at any nearby shelters. And we hope to recruit and train some club members to use the club's HF radio equipment (an ARRL Official Emergency Station) to transmit I-am-Safe message files beyond the area affected by a Cascadia earthquake or other major disaster.
EmComm Article, The Logger's Bark, March 2024
EmComm Article, The Logger's Bark, April 2024
EmComm Article, The Logger's Bark, May 2024
EmComm Article, The Logger's Bark, June 2024