ATTACHMENT "G"
ODE TO A TOUR OF DUTY AS NCS - THE FIRST 15 MINUTES
Just for instructional fun....
by R. Bruce Winchell - N8UT
Reproduce freely
Your EC just woke you up in the middle of your favorite TV sporting event. He wants you to start an emergency net from your shack. He is at the EOC. There is a ruptured gas main in a heavily populated part of town. Other than the location, he didn't give you any more information. You head for the shack, turn on the 2 meter rig, and grab a clipboard. Your training kicks in. You begin asking yourself questions and writing down the answers.
OK, broken gas main . . . police, fire, gas company, and EM involved . . . possible evacuation . . . possible need to open shelter . . . transportation possibly needed . . . likelihood of handicapped people in the area . . . danger of asphyxiation . . . might go all night
1. What kind of net should I start?
A. Open?B. Directed?
2. How many people am I likely to need?
3. How long do I estimate the event will last?
4. Do I need to hold some people in reserve for a shift change?
5. What agencies are likely to be involved?
A. Do we have special liaison people for these agencies?
6. Do I have any operators who live in the effected area?
7. Which way is the wind blowing?
8. What will be the safest route into the area?
Don't have enough information. EC said he will call back with more. Better find out what I have available right now. Pick up the mike and announce that there is an emergency situation developing. Use Open format standby net. Take check-ins. Ask two operators to go to other local repeaters and recruit people for the upcoming net. Check-ins begin coming in. Tell everyone to prepare for participation assignments. Recruit someone to come to your shack to do logging and phone calls for you.
EC calls back. Says to prepare for an all-niter. You are going to need relief shifts. Evacuation will take place. Need to activate Red Cross shelter at high school. Red Cross has been notified. Wants voice and packet for shelter. Requests 5 operators to report to staging area to do head counts on city buses being used for evacuation. Needs 2 RACES members to man 2 meter and packet stations at EOC ASAP.
Back on the air. Formalize the net. Request 2 RACES volunteers for a 4 hour shift at EOC . . . one has to be able to run packet. Recruit 2 more RACES volunteers to pick up the portable packet station stored at the clubhouse and dispatch them to the high school shelter. Recruit 5 volunteers to handle head counts and assign one of them as team leader to compile the reports. Send them into the area from the North.
Ask for volunteer RACES qualified base station close to the staging area to liaison traffic from the staging area volunteers to the Red Cross shelter on simplex so that HT's can be run on low power to conserve batteries.. Ask liaison station to relay only compiled totals to NCS.
Request a qualified NCS volunteer to set up a resource net and two shift reliefs on secondary repeater. Instruct all remaining individuals not yet assigned to a task to check-in on the resource net. 8 minutes ... not bad ...smooth as silk. Call EC and give progress report.
Can't reach EC.
8 minutes, 15 seconds: Logging volunteer shows up. . . slightly drunk.
8 minutes, 30 seconds: Your wife informs you that the toilet is plugged and she can't find the handle to the plumber's plunger. You smile. It's taped to the tower . . . holding your new wire antenna.
9 minutes: Your 6 year old tells you that there is a big fire in a warehouse across town . . . he thinks it's where you work . . . it's on TV . . . and a half mile upwind from the gas leak.
9 minutes 30 seconds: Over in the corner, under a big stack of radio catalogs, the weather alert receiver begins to screech ..... it's tornado season.
9 minutes 50 seconds: The phone rings, your assistant drops it, hiccups loudly, passes gas, and then hands it to you . . . it's the EC. The telephone receiver is broken but you manage to understand that the EC now wants you to set up a Skywarn sub-net and send out the Amateur TV guys to the warehouse fire. You tell the EC, "No Problem"
10 minutes 30 seconds: Hang up the broken phone and call the resource net for manpower to fill the new requests. Resource NCS says "No Problem".
11 minutes: Resource net calls back. One of the available ATV guys is on his way to the shelter as the packet operator and the other one is your hiccup afflicted logging assistant. The other ATV team is out of town on an experimental, underwater, dual satellite linked ATV Dxpedition near Easter Island . . . bunch of retired guys with too much money. You console the frustrated Resource NCS and tell him to work it out.
12 minutes 10 seconds: You call the EC and tell him there will be a bit of a delay but there is "No Problem".
12 minutes 40 seconds: You have your wife start pouring strong coffee into your assistant. Maybe he will function a little better as a wide-awake drunk?
13 minutes 5 seconds: Your pager goes off with a message from your boss telling you not to bother reporting for work in the morning.
13 minutes 8 seconds: Console wife about income loss by giving her a hug and saying, "No Problem", while patting her on the rump and trying not to lose focus.
13 minutes 20 seconds: The computer printer connected to your packet station begins spitting out paper. The packet station at the EOC is still programmed to your station from the last test you did. Fast and frantic search begins and ends. The right software for it is in your briefcase . . . at work . . . where the fire is . .
13 minutes 35 seconds: The liaison station calls on the radio to report that one of your staging area volunteers has just gone into labor . . . her water broke and ruined her shoes; and he wants to know if it is OK to let her go to the hospital.
13 minutes 55 seconds: The 16 year old kid, who took the test 10 times to get his Tech license, calls in a "priority" message on his HT, with a half-dead battery, on the rubber duck, from 15 miles out of town, to report that the wind just blew over the outhouse with grandma inside. Grandma got confused after she rolled out of the outhouse and fell in the pit. After 8 more broken transmissions, you find out that grandma is OK . . . "but she smells . . . sumthin' awful!"
Welcome to the first 15 minutes of an emergency net from inside a net control station.
Out on the resource net, there is much grumbling about going to bed . . . because nothing is happening.