In my last post, I encouraged participation in a very realistic EmComm drill hosted by our friends at LAXNortheast. I participated in this event and thought it would be a good idea to share my experience.
This Tsunami scenario is very real for me. I live in Southern Orange County, CA. My city of San Clemente is the closest municipal area to the no longer operating San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). At this site are a large number of underground “casks” that store spent, but active, nuclear material. This is a very dangerous situation considering the plant is in a Tsunami zone AND along the San Andreas fault line.
During the exercise, I set up a portable EmComm station at a campsite in the San Onofre State Park, less than 1/4 mile from SONGS. I simulated that I was coordinating with the state park rangers to provide EmComm services as needed.
In this scenario, the focus was on Winlink. There were seven (7) tasks that each participant was asked to perform:
1) Maintain a ICS-214 activity log for all activities performed.
2) Send a Winlink ‘Did-you-feel-it’ (DYFI) report to the USGS.
3) Send a Winlink Check-In form.
4) Send a Welfare Bulletin message.
5) Send an ICS-213 General message.
6) Send a Winlink Check-Out form.
7) Send the completed ICS-214 form.
At face value, this looks like a straighforward series of steps that should be completed fairly quickly. What I found, however, was this is not as easy as it appears, especially if you are in the field.
I set a goal to complete the seven steps in less than 30 minutes. In reality, it took me more than 90 minutes to complete.