From: "Bruce Freund, K7BC"
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:20:22 -0400

Greetings ARES Leaders,

My last e-mail to you gave a website link for those who wished to register to volunteer to mutually assist with the Katrina disaster.

That link serves as a clearinghouse for the selection of operators that will go.

We have been notified of the first Virginia Section ARES operator to be called up. In the e-mail from the mutual assistance clearinghouse, it specified that the ARES operator selected needed to notify their DEC of the call-up.

To reinforce this, I ask the DECs to send out a brief notice to their ECs to send to all their members stating the request that any member who is called up notify their EC and DEC. In turn, I would appreciate any DEC so notified to relay that message on to me so that we will have an on-going list of participants.; Further, that list could/should be very helpful in car or vehicle pooling for the trip to the disaster area and back.

I suspect that this call-up may have a longer duration than any of us might imagine. So, if you have registered and haven't yet been called, be patient. The conditions under which these volunteer operators are functioning are physically and emotionally draining.

I imagine that rotational times will be relatively short, but we'll see.

So, please keep me in the loop.

73,

Ron Sokol, K4KHZ
ARRL/ARES
Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator
Virginia Section