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What was learned in Seattle\'s earthquake

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by Guest, Mar 18, 2001.

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    N7RVN - Scott Crippen writes "Most of us know that the Seattle area had an earthquake on February 28, 2001. Hams were in the heart of the damage assessments, health and welfare, and assisting multiple agencies with communications for a huge variety of needs.


    Amateur operators were assisting volunteers such as Red Cross and Salvation Army, hospitals, fire and police departments, city, county and State EOC's, Coast Guard, military, shelters, and utilities offices as well as passing traffic to loved ones across the nation. "Hams came out of the woodwork on 2 meters and there were tons of nets all over the HF bands" were the words of KB7TBF Rick Hodges http://kb7tbf.com the EC for King County ARES. "All our drills and practice nets finally paid off."







    What was learned from the aftermath of the quake? De-briefings and serious re-assessment of planning by citizens, hospitals, engineers, fire and police departments, emergency management officials, and all sorts of communications teams.



    Prior to the quake, in King County, the different cities have albeit divorced themselves from the County when it comes to emergency response. ARES has given way to Emergency Communications Team (ECT) and Auxiliary Communications Support (ACS) teams for each city. The Boeing Corporation, Microsoft http://www.microhams.com/, American Red Cross, United States Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), King County EOC, and REACT all have become teams separate from the County ARES group.



    Many jurisdictions (Mostly the cities and County) have decided to screen people for criminal history and in some cases, drug screens before allowed as a member of the team. Many jurisdictions are required to attend classes and register as a Washington State Emergency Worker before being allowed to assist. This is an effort to minimize the risk of lawsuits from a member's actions. The cities are afraid that they may liable should a member cause damage by releasing sensitive information, theft, and personal or property damage.



    Understanding that those risk managers are looking for the "worst case" does not do a lot to help the situation when a major event occurs. Unless you are already approved and a "card carrying" member of the team, you can not be assigned to positions at many facilities which need communications support. This is a mistake in my opinion. Though there are members of the teams tasked with assignments automatically, there are not enough hams on each team to cover ALL the potential assignments. If local operators were more inclined to be involved with the local ARES / ACS teams on a regular basis, they could be approved through the screening process and available to participate more readily. Then again, if they were approved from a larger (county, State, or Federal) entity the ham could be utilized by anyone, anywhere.



    I believe that should an individual intentionally cause harm to someone or something as an agent of a particular jurisdiction, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law with special circumstances being considered to maximize jail terms and fines. We are responsible for our own actions and entrusted with special privileges as a result of our skills and abilities as amateur radio operators. We should be extra careful to insure our actions do not cause us to loose these privileges.




    The other side of this is that the new found "ownership" of the team members by each jurisdiction pretty much precludes them from assisting other jurisdictions. We all want to help others in our own back yard first. If there is a situation on the other side of the County, since that jurisdiction requires members, can they assist? The answer is "sort of". Most jurisdictions have a clause to include other assistance from "the emergent population". There are some huge limitations on the possible assignments for the emergent population though. Cycling through to relieve those who may have been at the same assignment for hours may not be possible as a result of other regulations.



    Some sort of workman's compensation-like insurance is usually offered to those who are given assignments as agents of the city or county involved should they be hurt. The ARRL does not offer any type of insurance to help calm the nerves of the risk managers and open the doors a bit. Due to the quake, will the cities loosen up their regulations as to who can help? This remains to be seen. Things were learned and will likely change to some degree, the policies currently in place.



    One issue that is being aggressively addressed is in the city of Renton Washington. They recently started up a team of ACS members. The team is headed up by Mark Bailey KC7RAZ. Mark is a firefighter for the city and he decided to encourage hams that lived locally to get more involved. He had to do some serious negotiating with the fire chief to get some space for a shack at one of the stations houses. Radios were ordered and hams were getting involved and more active with planning and preparation should there be a need to assist in an emergency. The quake hit but there were no radios yet. The chief has put emphasis on getting the necessary gear to support the needs of the hams. Other stations will likely have an area to set up a shack too.



    Much of the planning in place and practiced by the hams worked well. Frequency coordination put in place in the Puget Sound area was fairly well established. The need for more frequencies was evident quickly for more special situations. One repeater was used exclusively between a city and the County EOC in a manner that was not originally coordinated. The ripple effect on other repeaters caused a few problems until everyone adapted. Health and welfare traffic was attempted on the Boeing Employees Amateur Society's 145.330 Evergreen intertie system http://www.qsl.net/k7nws/ This system is set up as a large area coverage system linking many repeaters and covers almost the entire state. The repeaters that are able to link to the system were deluged with traffic and overwhelmed the system making it impossible to operate locally between the H & W messages State wide. The system was eventually shut down to separate the repeaters. One system, 147.200 K7PP http://www.k7pp.com/ covers the entire western half of the State as well as Northern Oregon, Southern British Columbia Canada and the San Juan Islands. This system relies on one set of frequencies which are simulcast on three or four transmitters. Lots of traffic on initial damage assessment was passed here.



    One issue that I believe needs to be addressed is that it is necessary to practice and understand all areas of our responses that need fine tuning. The military regularly drills to hone the response time to get planes in the air or ships underway. They do these things to work out the bugs and make their response more effective and efficient. We all should practice drilling with more regularity. We all can learn from the mistakes in planning, expectations in protocol and assignments, as well as frequency allocation that occurred in Puget Sound.



    In an article for QRZ.com called "looking for Seattle earthquake stories" I asked that if you have an interesting story about your direct involvement with the Earthquake in Seattle. There are folks that want to hear about it. Many have already responded though the article was put in the "raves" section of QRZ.com .This is in an effort to compile information to share so that we all can learn what can happen in a disaster. Ed Bruette N7NVP the AEC and State RACES radio officer for Western Washington is working on a story/report for the ARRL. This is a huge task based on all the information that he has been given to wade through.



    I have recently talked to some folks in the Seattle area who were extremely active in the aftermath of the earthquake in the Northwest. There are so many little stories coming in about the usefulness of ham operators across the globe that there is no way possible that they are all known. I have it on excellent authority that these stories are in demand so something may be consolidated into one big grouping.
    For example, the Jail in Seattle had no phones to, from, or within the jail right after the quake. Television cable was disrupted and no source of information could get into the facility. As a precaution, the jail was immediately locked down and no one could get in or out. Staff attempted to use their personal cell phones........ yeah, right. Without information available, they had no clue what was going on outside the concrete walls. One staff member who always carries a radio into the jail (just in case) N7FL Debbie Riehl used it to listen to the 2 meter reports and had many staff members in a break room pleading to turn up the volume so they could hear the traffic.



    One lady (non-ham) used a scanner to listen to a 2 meter frequency and heard her husband's voice and call. This quelled her anxiety about his safety. She is reportedly is enrolling in the next ham class.



    On HF, there was reportedly health and welfare traffic which seemed to surround a panicked woman who was traveling and not at home in the Seattle area, about status of her loved one named Fritz. After multiple attempts to get into the Seattle area and to someone with a working phone, turns out all was fine with him though he experienced one minor injury. He hurt his paw. We STILL don't know what kind of animal Fritz is.......



    One area EOC did not have the Hams listed as part of "The Plan" and after all the usefulness they received from hams who "just showed up" to help, they are re-working their plan to include hams and already working on a station at the EOC for the new group.



    One city found their fancy new 800 Mhz radio system could not talk to the County's EOC (on the same system) and relied solely on a 2 meter repeater to pass traffic for nine hours.



    A potentially huge "I forgot about that" was corrected when hams who were pre-assigned to respond to the hospital, (the one that coordinates all the area hospitals) reminded them to turn on their 150Mhz radios so they could commence communications with a bunch of anxious folk from the other area hospitals. As a side note, the hams did this and STILL got up and running on the Medical Net http://kb7tbf.com/Medical/index.htm before the hospital did.



    These are certainly condensed versions of some of the things that happened. If you have a few minutes to put something in email form or thread it onto this article, I will forward all to those who are requesting the stories. Please try to be specific about the details (HF, FM, packet, etc...) the cities involved, and whatever else may be of importance. Some of the stories may be used to help address potential problems in the future, thousands of miles away. There were LOTS of things learned by those who experienced it. Others may benefit from what was learned. Some might get a good belly laugh too.



    E-mail me at the address listed here.





    Thanks and 73





    Scott Crippen





    n7rvn@hotmail.com"
     
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