With the record-setting 2017 hurricane season still fresh in most American’s minds, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), in conjunction with local emergency managers, is rolling out a new hurricane and severe weather evacuation system.
To read more, see:
Info below received via our SEC:
The pressure has been on for some time to have the ICS 213 form appear more like the FEMA hard copy. The biggest constraint to doing this was trying to get the HTML code, Java Scripting, and Winlink Express command lines to cooperate. This is why what you saw in previous versions was the best that could be offered, until now.
Thanks to Greg Kruckewitt KG6SJT, our recent addition to Winlink Template group and his Java scripting expertise, we have a new 213.
Up front I have to thank Greg and his countless hours on this project, to include putting up with my never ending changes and questions.
As such when the next Template pack version 46.0 is “pushed” via the internet you will have the new ICS 213 available, version 25.0.
If you have no Internet available at a managed site you may update the forms yourself.
This new ICS 213 is NOT fully backwards compatible. If someone uses the old version to send, the new will at least display the message
information, just many other fields will not propagate.
PLEASE read the instructions that are are part of the Initial Entry form and try a few to understand the REPLY portion changes.
Any and all questions, help needed, suggestions, or platitudes go to KG6SJT@ winlink.org
The New Form:
– We were able to remove the sometimes accidental bringing up the ICS-213_SendReply.txt by error, you no longer see it.
Now you can only click on the ICS213_Initial.txt (Setting the ICS 213 as a “favorite” template did prevent this).
-Screen shot of the Initial entry form:
– Screen shot of the Inbound 213.
Note you can not use this form to reply from, read the instructions. But you can print it in order to obtain a written response.
When you print the items marked in YELLOW are removed.
– Screen shot of the final ICS 213 to print or save.
We understand that with chnage comes anxiety. Test and learn this forms process and how to initiate a Reply. Some will not like this new format as it is a departure from the previous two years. But SHARES, served agencies, and others have been asking for this for some time. Is it perfect? Perhaps not, best that can be done at this time.
Links to the ARRL Emergency Communicator training (EC-001 and EC-016) have been added under then Training tab (top of the screen). These courses are specific to the amateur radio communicator and are good resources for any AUXCOMM member. Please take some time to review the courses and determine if this is something of interest to you.
I’ve updated the CALV ICS-205 Incident Communications Plan to include the new HF voice and data frequencies. Also updated is the CTCSS tone that the Davidsonville two-meter repeater now transmits.
If you haven’t already, please update your radios and files with the changes. The ICS-205 (non-incident specific) form is always found at the top of the Frequencies page.
September is National Preparedness Month and each week we’re looking at different disasters that should be prepared for. This week we’re talking about power outages.
On the morning of August 14th, 2003, no one foresaw how that day would test their preparedness against disasters and put millions of people’s emergency plans into action. Just after 4:10 PM a cascading voltage drop, caused by a software bug and power lines coming into contact with tree limbs, led to a blackout that put roughly 55 million people in the dark.
This event didn’t just affect people’s abilities to turn on lights and keep their food cold but also took down communications infrastructure. Many cellular systems failed when generators ran out of fuel, cable television systems went offline until their home offices regained power, and Internet connectivity similarly went down causing those that relied on Internet connectivity for news and communications to be left in the dark. Amateur radio operators in Suffolk County, NY, handled roughly 500 pieces of traffic of which the majority was health-and-welfare traffic.
The power outage affected New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario. At least ten deaths are attributed to the outage and New York City Fire Department handled 60 “all-hands” fires that were caused by people using candles for illumination.
In the aftermath of the Northeast US blackout of 2003, we learned some lessons that can help prevent further emergencies while reducing the load on emergency services.
Amateur radio operators are likely to be better prepared for a communication outage since we utilize communication methods that are both efficient (little bandwidth, less power consumption) and don’t require Internet or other commercial infrastructure to function.
There are some basic things we need to take into consideration, however:
September is National Preparedness Month and each week we’re looking at different disasters that should be prepared for. This week we’re talking about hurricanes.
Since 1980, Maryland has been affected by 56 hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions. Most of these storms hit in September and bring flooding, high winds, and power outages.
The biggest threat that comes from these storms is storm surge. When tropical cyclones make landfall they bring with them a mass of water above what is already wind driven. This, plus an ill-timed tide, can cause significant flooding which can cut off evacuation routes, isolate people from resources, and cause serious property damage and death. According to Maryland Department of the Environment, 5.1% of Calvert County is in the 100-year floodplain which includes 3300 people and 1134 structures.
If there is a good aspect to hurricanes it is the advance notice we typically get from the National Hurricane Center. Advance notice of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are measured in minutes where hurricanes are typically forecast days in advance. It’s important to prepare yourself and your property now.
Make a plan. Make a kit. Test your plan. Get out alive.
…can prevent forest fires.
September is National Preparedness Month and each week we’re looking at different disasters that should be prepared for. This week we’re talking about wildfires.
When I think wildfire I think of the northwest. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming seem to have the largest share of these types of disasters. Maryland, however, is not without their share of wildfires.
According to Maryland DNR, the Maryland Forest Service responds to around 500 wildfires each year burning more than 4000 acres. Local fire departments respond to another 5000. Most of these fires are caused by humans.
With residential areas increasingly growing into the wildland areas, there is an ever increasing risk that a wildfire will impact peoples lives. It is important to learn how to help mitigate the risk of wildfire affecting your property as well as being ready to evacuate if the call comes. Many times these emergency evacuations leave residents little time to react as a fire storm may already be at your doorstep.
Make a plan. Make a kit. Test your plan. Get out alive.
In the September meeting announcement I noted that we’d be learning how to use fldigi and RMS Express to transmit messages. Jim, K3UGA, found a great video that not only discusses how to setup fldigi and rest of the suite of programs that make up the Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System (NBEMS) but also shows them in use. I encourage everyone to take a look at the video (below) and become familiar with these programs.
In the near future I’d like to start a net using these tools to make sure everyone remains familiar with how they work. Fldigi, by the way, is a great program for everyday keyboard-to-keyboard communications on HF and the same setup could be used for both emergencies and normal operations.
Pre-planning is one of the most important aspects of an emergency response. Without pre-planning you have no organized structure to underpin your response. An unfolding emergency is not the time to gather your thoughts on what you need to do.
Pre-planning helps to prevent forgetting all the myriad steps in your emergency response plans. Pre-planning is the guide that captures the practiced coordination and the gear you should have assembled to be ready with your response. But pre-planning is not just the guide you will rely on for a local or non-local emergency. This guide will also provide the response you have in place for your own home. You cannot worry about the safety of your own loved ones and your home while you are trying to respond to an emergency that is affecting others and is outside your own immediate environment. You need to make sure that your family and your home are prepared ahead of time to be able to handle the serious problems that a wide-spread emergency can present.
You can properly respond to an emergency incident in your community if you have covered the needs of your own family and home. Some families have special needs, but all families have needs that have to be included in pre-planning. You can properly address your family’s needs before a disaster scenario by making sure you have covered at least the following:
Check for additional resources that are available at ready.gov.
Training is the second most important aspect of pre-planning. Once you have a plan in place, you need to train to that plan. The training phase is the time to find out where problems may arise. Responding to an actual emergency is NOT the time to find out where mistakes will emerge from your plan. Training should also include communications with pre-identified agencies who are the first-line responders and coordinators of any variety of emergency. And this is also where you want to make sure that your ham radio contribution is truly ready to assist when needed. Do you have a checklist for you individual radio, accessories, and personal items you would need in responding to any kind of emergency. The least amount of time you should plan for is 24 hours. The most amount of time could be days or weeks or more. Do you have an adequate stand-alone power source that will keep you up and running for a long time? What radios would you bring? How will you transport them? Make sure you have a contingency plan for antennas. Make sure you have a variety of antenna connectors – odd and not – just so you can get your messages out. If you don’t have a compatible connection to the antennas on site of the disaster, you won’t be able to work those critical emergency communications. You might as well be a dead cell phone.
On the human side, do you have adequate food and water and daily medications? What will you sleep on and what will you use for toiletries? Sanitation and personal grooming items are important in keeping you clean and healthy and on the job. Do you have first-aid items that will last, particularly if you have to share them? An extra pair of glasses? Think of responding to an emergency with your radio the same way you would supply yourself and your rig for a deep-woods camping trip. Don’t pack only for the radio. You need to pack for yourself or you might end up being a casualty yourself. Make that list and check it twice. And don’t depend on the agencies working the emergency to provide personal comfort and food and water. They’ll need their supplies for the victims of the disaster.
Be ready, be organized, be well-trained, and be the emergency support communications that amateur radio operators practice to be. Think about what you would do and how you would operate in a flood and landslide. How would you operate in a sizable earthquake? How about a nuclear accident? How about a hurricane or tornado? In your lifetime, you would probably never be called on to operate a radio station in most of these disasters. But to be on the best side of pre-planning, you would still want to prepare for that one time when you would be called up. Being ready for anything is the foundation for the existence of amateur radio.
When you pre-plan you will know from the beginning:
Pre-planning is absolutely necessary to be prepared for any kind of disaster or emergency. But don’t become so locked into your checklists and your assumptions that you become unprepared for the unexpected. Pre-planning also needs to be flexible. Follow your guides, instructions, and checklists, but leave a “space” between the lines. That’s where you’ll be inserting “well, I never saw that coming!”
Prepare yourself, your family, your home, and your property. Only then can you go and be truly helpful to someone else who has lost all those things and more.
March is the time when we start to see more severe weather. It’s always good to get a refresher on what the terminologies mean…
