OK! Drill 2010 - Results & Reflection

[This is a drill that I would like to see more CERT groups sponsor - actually getting people to practice preparedness and what to do in a disaster... TJW]

OK! Drill 2010 - Results & Reflection: "The 3rd Ojai Valley OK! Drill, held Wednesday 7PM on September 15th, was a big success on many levels.

By 8:05PM, the total counts had been relayed via Ham Radio into the Ojai Police Department -- 40% improvement with a total of 1383 OK! Signs counted. All Neighborhoods showed measurable improvement year-over-year.

Casitas Springs -- 1
Oak View -- 246
Mira Monte -- 478
Meiners Oaks -- 239
Arbolada/Foothill -- 93
West City Ojai -- 127
East City Ojai -- 176
East End -- 2
Upper Ojai -- 21

Over 80 volunteers (made up of CERT, Red Cross and Ham Radio Operators) had completed the drill within the given time of 1 hour - rallying at pre-assigned rendezvous points throughout The Ojai Valley; searching pre-assigned search areas; and following ICS principles of communication by relaying total OK! Sign counts via Ham Radio to the Police Department.

The volunteers enjoyed support and encouragement from many Government/First Responder Officials including: District 1 County Supervisor Bennett and staff, City of Ojai Mayor Olsen, Battalion Chiefs Dorn and Garcia, Fire PIO Nash, Ojai Chief of Police Dunn. Bennett's aides, Cindy Cantle and Council Member Brian Brennan organized an after-event hot-wash discussion where volunteers shared their experiences including offering ideas for improvement. Everyone agreed that the flashing CalTrans Signs and the AM 1610 Radio Announcement were major factors in the drill's success. Supervisor Bennett read a Proclamation from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors acknowledging the team effort and naming September 15th as 'Ojai Valley OK Community Drill Day'. County OES contributed with releasing Reverse 911 which contacted 15,000 residences alerting people of the drill.

Leading up to the drill, several thousand OK! Signs were printed (by Supervisor Bennett's Office), laminated (funded by Rotary Club Ojai West) and distributed throughout The Ojai Valley (by CERT Volunteers). During the Sunday Ojai Farmer's Market a good percentage of shopper's remembered the prior year's drills and already had their signs at home.

Additional effort was made to reach out to sister organizations throughout the Valley who practiced their OK! Drill and then relayed the results to the Ojai PD. The additional drills were good local practice, demonstrated possibility of a CountyWide event, and proved that distant groups can effectively relay information:

-Camarillo Leisure Village -- 1467 signs counted within 50 minutes
-Santa Paula CERT/Neighborhood Watch -- 192 signs counted (first OK! Drill)
-Ventura Mobile Home Park -- 188 signs counted
-Santa Rosa Ham Radio Communications -- 8 Operators checked in
-Lake Los Angeles Ham Radio Communications -- Proof of concept for comm relay
-Ham Radio Relay between locations in Los Angeles County and Santa Paula - Proof of concept for comm relay

Hovan (KI6BQL) was Ventura CountyWide Net Control Ham Operator who tied all the remote groups together and relayed information to Wayne (W6OEU) in Ojai. Thanks to Wayne (N6WIX), and SMRA, for securing time on the County Repeater from the South Mountain Repeater Association.

We are anticipating next year for our sister groups within Ventura County and neighboring Counties (Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo) to participate during the 2011 OK! Drill.

Big thanks goes out to all the CERT Neighborhood Area Coordinators, NERT Coordinators, Volunteer Search Support and Radio Operators.

We cannot overlook the most important participant in The Ojai Valley OK! Drill -- each and every resident who chose to spend a few minutes:

-Preparing their disaster plan
-Tuning to AM 1610
-Posting their Yellow OK Sign in a location closest to the street
-Checking on their neighbor

Without a sign being posted, we don't have a drill.

Looking forward to the 4th Annual OK! Drill -- 3rd Wednesday in Sept - 9/21/11 at 7PM.

"

Emergency Radios That Still Don’t Communicate With Each Other 9 Years Later & The Danger To Government Credibility With The Public

Emergency Radios That Still Don’t Communicate With Each Other 9 Years Later & The Danger To Government Credibility With The Public: "

For government authorities one of — if not the most — important part of homeland security/disaster preparedness and response is its credibility with the public. There will always be skepticism about government communication, but the ability of the authorities to be able to be trusted during and after a crisis is vital. It’s in large part why a recent New York Times article worried me.

One of the great tragedies and surprises for the public in the aftermath of the September 11th World Trade Center attacks was learning that New York City first responders could not communicate on their radios during the rescue effort. The 9/11 Commission report said dealing with that problem should be a top priority.

Well, in an interesting article in the New York Times earlier this month by Edward Hyatt, “9 Years After 9/11, Public Safety Radio Not Ready,” indicates that almost a decade later the issue still exists. Hyatt writes:

The problem, highlighted in the 9/11 Commission Report, was seen again in 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Public safety officers from different jurisdictions arrived at the scene of those disasters only to find that, unable to communicate with each other by radio, they had to resort to running handwritten notes between command centers.

Despite $7 billion in federal grants and other spending over the last seven years to improve the ability of public safety departments to talk to one another, most experts in such communications say that it will be years, if ever, before a single nationwide public safety radio system becomes a reality.

I would think a lot of readers must have been shocked to read that the connectivity issue remains. I am not enough of a technical expert to determine how reasonable this situation is. But this is type of unsolved problem that can really severely damage the government’s homeland security credibility, particularly if it is not explained to the public why it has not been dealt with (and may never be). I would hope that the officials at all levels would speak more about the lack of communications issue and not wait for the press to bring it up. If there is another situation like 9/11 and there are similar problems, it will be very difficult for the public to accept after all the discussions and hand-wringing about the issue.

But this question of government credibility should be viewed even broader, particularly in the area of communications. There is a lot of confusion among the public and in fact the government about how officials would communicate with its citizens and vice versa in a crisis. In fact, officials should be conducting an ongoing dialogue with the public on communications in general (ie. warning systems, IPAWS, reverse 9/11) which are evolving but are not currently up to speed.

But this ‘more is more’ approach to information is useful across the board when it comes to establishing and maintaining government credibility during and after a major crisis, particularly a terrorist attack. The time to talk about ‘dirty bombs’ and ’shelter in place’ is not after the incident but before. So, my strong hope is that government officials at the national, state and local levels are more forthcoming about the challenging issues they are dealing with so the public is not surprised to hear that problems they thought were being addressed have not been. Americans will be far more understanding if they are let into the ongoing discussion, and importantly their government will have more credibility with them.

"

2010 CERT Invitational

2010 CERT Invitational: "On September 11, 2010, the Burbank Fire Department hosted the 2010 CERT Invitational. Six teams competed in high intensity skills challenges based solely on the Citizen Corps CERT curricula. Awards were given for the highest scoring team at each station as well as awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall finishes. The name of the overall winning team got bragging rights - their name will be the first engraved on a perpetual plaque for what is expected to become an annual tradition.



The CERT teams tested their skills by competing in a number of skill stations that were timed and judged by a panel of experts.



The skills stations in the event included: fire suppression, victim triage and casualty collection area, search and rescue operations, cribbing and victim extrication, disaster medical operations and a comprehensive written exam."

Scanners May Be Your Only Option To Know If Help Is On The Way

Scanners May Be Your Only Option To Know If Help Is On The Way: "

In CERT, we learn 'Following a major disaster, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be able to meet the demand for these services. Factors as number of victims, communication failures, and road blockages will prevent people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment's notice through 911. People will have to rely on each other for help in order to meet their immediate life saving and life sustaining needs.' (www.citizencorps.gov/cert/about)

You call 911 and you are unable to get through. How do you know if help is arriving and how bad is the situation?

One option is to find your local emergency agency on a scanner. The following website provides live feeds from across the country.

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/

For additional tips, visit http://www.facebook.com/citizencorps

"

Editor's Note:

This website provides close to real-time radio messages for a variety of emergency responders (such as police and fire) and ham radio repeaters. Just find the feed you would like to hear and click on the speaker icon to find out what is going on. I compared this with my radios and found that they were only about 2 seconds behind the actual radio calls.

Terry Walters