Presentation – April 19, 2016 Presenter: Glenn Lindsey VA7HC
What were you doing at 1139 hours on Tuesday December 29, 2015?
4.8 magnitude earthquake hits Victoria area What did you do immediately afterwards? Contact the WARA 146.840 repeater perhaps?
An Invitation to a DISASTER . . .
. . . Radio Exercise WHAT ’s happening? #1 A disaster radio exercise with EMBC WHAT ’s happening? #2 WARA Red Cross EMCOMMs involved WHO ’s invited? YOU - a convergent volunteer WHEN ’s the date? Saturday June 4, 2016 HOW LONG is it? Three hours – 0900-1200 hours WHERE ’s it happening? In the area wide emergency OPS centres HOW can I get involved? Listen to 146.840 on June 4th morning WHEN can I get training? VEMA training centre – Wed. May 11th WHY? EOCs will need convergent volunteers in a disaster
The Culprit Sources of Seismic Hazard in British Columbia: What Controls Earthquakes in the Crust Natalie Joy Balfour – University of Victoria - 2011
The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) must be able to function on a 24 / 7 basis from activation until de-mobilization as required to support the emergency response. Emergency Operations Centre Operational Guidelines – 2 nd Edition
The Convergent Volunteer Local amateurs that can make their way to where they are needed can be helpful in working with existing teams. They can be much more helpful if they get some initial training in how the EOC operates, e.g. Packet and PACTOR messaging The Winlink system and accessing it through Remote Message Server (RMS) The use of templates for standard messages Voice message passing Basic logging requirements
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake has resulted from a rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of southwestern B.C. Strong shaking lasting several minutes has occurred in areas of Greater Vancouver, Greater Victoria and central Vancouver Island, causing some destruction in the major urban centres and widespread damage in the Port Alberni valley. The earthquake also generated a tsunami on the west coast of Vancouver Island minutes after the initial shock. [Text copied from Coastal Response flyer].
June 7-10, 2016
BC g overnment’s Exercise Coastal Response exercise June 7-10, 2016 This exercise will be a four-day, full-scale functional exercise in Port Alberni, B.C. and will include real-time activities and simulated situations involving certain functions, such as emergency operations, logistics, medical care, mass care, public information and operational communications.
18 per cent of buildings in the CRD are most likely to receive • extensive damage and 11 per cent are most likely to receive complete damage The injury rate, including non-severe, severe non-life threatening, and severe • life threatening is 52 injuries per 1000 people in the CRD and Metro Vancouver [potential 15,000 injuries in CRD] Number of fatalities: 4 per 1000 people in the CRD and Metro Vancouver • [1,200 fatalities in the CRD] 4 per cent of the population of the CRD will require short-term shelter, with the • most extreme requirements in the downtown area and Esquimalt. [12,000 people in the CRD require shelter] Common communication service providers may be impacted heavily, regardless of • communication technology provided, including cellular, landline, radio and satellite If service is available, the network may be overloaded, making communication • extremely challenging Radio communication, if operable, may be congested and impact • the ability of first responders
Displaced residents from Japan’s Kyushu magnitude 7.3 earthquake – April 15, 2016 “12,000 people in the CRD will probably require shelter”
M obile networks damage caused by Japan’s Fukushima mag 9 megathrust earthquake
In the CRD area, many older buildings have collapsed in the downtown and built-up areas of all municipalities. In the Electoral Areas, the tsunami has inundated low-lying sections of the West Coast Road and a number of campers at French Beach and Jordan River are feared to have been caught in the tsunami. There has been significant damage to infrastructure such as hydro transmission poles, water and gas lines, and communications towers.
Roles of the municipalities and electoral areas Each municipality opens an EOC to deal with the disaster. According to their available resources, they will activate additional communications equipment e.g., Go-Boxes in reception centres, mobile Incident Command Posts, or communications vans. CRD activates its radio room and contacts its client groups in the Juan de Fuca, Salt Spring Island, and the Southern Gulf Islands. EMBC activates its Keating Road PREOC.
How do we prepare for the exercise? Each group designs a detailed evolution of the scenario within their municipality or EA, including appropriate traffic such as SITREPs, requests for resources, and tactical messaging e.g., “the fire department has been notified”. There also could be damage reports from hams in the municipality. There will be traffic between EOCs and EMBC, such as Declaration of State of Emergency, SITREPs and requests for Task Numbers. Traffic (RMS and/or Pactor) with EMBC should be by WL2K packet to the maximum extent possible. There can be formal and informal messaging between EOCs. Informal messaging should be originated by operators, e.g. “Do you still have power at your location?” while formal voice or packet messaging can also occur, e.g. resource requests “Esquimalt requests use of a pumper truck from Victoria Public Works”.
How do we prepare? (continued) All formal messages should be written out in advance and passed to the radio teams on appropriate forms (i.e. trying to mimic what might actually happen in an EOC – at times formal message forms can be completed by the sender, at other times the sender can simply write out the message and give it to the operator, in an emergency the sender might want to dictate the message to a message clerk or the operator, depending on the situation). Informal or tactical messages shouldn’t be written out, but the operators should be encouraged to communicate tactical messages, e.g. “tell the comms van to go to Yates and Douglas and report to the incident commander”. The operators will be encouraged to be verbal with their own situations to each other, e.g. “you’ll have to go slower; I am the only one here until the EOC can get someone else down here to assist”.
How do we prepare? (More!) Convergent Volunteer TRAINING Date: e: Wednesday May 11, 2016 Loc ocat atio ion: : Fire Hall #1, 1234 Yates Street Enter ter vi via: The back door accessible from Camosun Street Time: ime: 6:45 pm RSVP VP to VE7VAW@rac.ca (so we can plan to accommodate you) Call ll-in in frequency uency is 146.475 simplex
A short history of Disaster Radio Exercises in the CRD October 2015 – VEMA and CRD teams run some initial exercises November 2015 – Oak Bay joins VEMA and CRD for a second exercise December 2015 – Esquimalt joins for a third exercise February 2016 – VE7PEP (EMBC) joins for a fourth exercise April 2016 – An Invitation is sent all municipalities and electoral areas to join the June 4, 2016 exercise The development of these disaster radio exercises has been evolutionary and is unique to British Columbia
An early example of a disaster radio script
Radio Message Form voice messaging exercise example
Request for Resources sent by packet radio to EMBC during an exercise
Station Chart for February 10 th Exercise
Some statistics from February 10 th exercise Total number of radio operators - 32 # VE7PEP radio operators - 4 # VE7VOP radio operators - 8 # VE7CRD radio operators - 8 # VA7JDF radio operators - 2 # VE7EEP radio operators - 4 # VE7OEP radio operators - 6
Photographs – EMBC (VE7PEP)
Photographs – Victoria (VE7VOP)
Photographs – CRD (VE7CRD)
Photographs – JdF EOC (VA7JDF)
Photographs – Oak Bay (VE7OEP)
Photographs – Esquimalt (VE7EEP)
You are invited to a Disaster Radio Exercise WHAT ’s happening? #1 A disaster radio exercise with EMBC WHAT ’s happening? #2 WARA Red Cross EMCOMMs involved WHO ’s invited? YOU - a convergent volunteer WHEN ’s the date? Saturday June 4, 2016 HOW LONG is it? Three hours – 0900-1200 hours WHERE ’s it happening? In the area wide emergency OPS centres HOW can I get involved? Listen to 146.840 on June 4th morning WHEN can I get training? VEMA training centre – Wed. May 11th WHY? EOCs will need convergent volunteers in a disaster
The Convergent Volunteer What’s in it for me? Support WARA by listening to 146.840 for “Exercise, exercise, exercise” on June 4, 2016 Engage directly in a meaningful Disaster Radio exercise Participate in an Emergency Operations Centre Personal growth as a radio amateur Learn packet radio – VHF, UHF, HF Learn formal written message passing Prepare for “The Big One” as a radio amateur
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