"Eclipse Drill" Demonstrates CERT Comm Emergency Response

The Scenario

     A lunar eclipse was recorded in October of 1999 with a shadow track that passed directly over Silicon Valley and the Hayward fault.  Many agencies forecast an earthquake event in January of 2001 based upon a historically observed 15 month cycle.  
     During the middle of the forecast window, Saturday, January 27 and Sunday January 28, 2001, Cert Comm monitored the 147.015+ repeater at 3:00 pm.  When the simulated disaster was declared, Cert Comm hams  mobilized at their designated Incident Command locations, set up a Communications Post, checked into a city-wide net held on the 145.7 MHz simplex frequency, and passed messages given to them by their Incident Commander.

The Objective

This drill rates the ability of Cert Comm districts to meet the following objectives:
  • Minimize Communications Post deployment time
  • Increase participation by district hams
  • Utilize district owned radio equipment
  • Apply proper message handling procedures per Operational Guidelines for Communications Commanders

Scoring

     Districts were scored according to the following formula:
  • Station Activation – score calculated as (60 / elapsed time in minutes to activation)
  • Attendance – score one point for each Cert Ham present at IC location
  • Equipment – score 5 points for using the district owned radio
  • Antenna – Score 5 points for erecting and operating the district owned J-pole antenna
  • Traffic – Score 5 points for passing designated message
  • Procedure – Score 5 points for utilizing proper message format
    		•

     

    The Results
    District Rank Time to Activate # Hams Attending District Radio District J-Pole Traffic Passed Message Format Total
    Irvington 1 10 (6 min) 1 5 5 5 0 26
    Mission San Jose 2 3 (18 min) 4 5 5 5 2 24
    Niles 3 4 (15 min) 1 5 5 5 2 22
    Warm Springs 4 3 (17 min) 2 5 5 5 0.5 20.5
    Union City 5 2 (30 min) 3 5 0 5 0 15

    Lessons Learned

         All participating districts did a great job! Every district could locate and correctly operate their district's radio. Only Union City did not use their district's j-pole antenna, but they had a good excuse: it was inaccessible due to damage to their fire station! Fortunately, they were able to improvise and set up a member's personal j-pole at their staging area. Irvington had a spectacular response time -- less than half that of the next fastest district. This helped them capture the lead with a total of 26 points. Congratulations, Irvington! Warm Springs deserves kudos for a strong showing from a communications post set up by one of our newest CERT Comm members (and great coaching by an experienced ham). In Niles a CERT Comm member who could not make it to the staging area participated remotely by radio -- great initiative. Mission San Jose proved once again they could bring out the numbers.
         Particularly gratifying was the support shown by the CERT District Coordinators. In every district, the first ham to respond was handed their "emergency traffic" by the District Coordinator or his/her representative. Close cooperation between District Coordinators and the District Communications Officers is a key to success.
         Where we can improve is in the area of message handling. While the content of every message was successfully copied by Net Control, in many cases no message number or message precedence was assigned. No one included a destination for the message (although this was mostly a fault in the design of the drill). And again: everyone needs to learn to speak   s   l   o   w   l   y.
         A debrief was conducted over pizza, with lots of ideas for improvements and new drills for the future!