I have been rather slow to realize that I don't really have any idea what takes place after a major disaster, natural or manmade.

For those of you who have been there, what can people expect? I understand that the nature of the problem will determine certain things, but I suspect that some conditions will remain somewhat the same: trees down across roads & lines, debris collected in awkward places, movement by vehicle is curtailed, lack of food & water, lack of shelter, a percentage of people injured.

We have been advised to keep emergency supplies on hand for 3 days. That has always seemed woefully inadequate. After 3 days, does the military move in & start setting up shelters, handing out food & water & TP? I somehow suspect <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> that they aren't coming out to those of us in semi-rural areas by helicopter and delivering crates of necessities door-to-door. But just how does it work? If you can't get to a common area, you're out of luck, or what?

I feel that in my particular case, I am far better off to keep supplies on hand & hunker down, but what happens if I'm not home and can't get home after a major earthquake hits (a good possibility), due to overpasses down (I live near I-5, a major artery), or many trees & power poles across roads (highlights of the surface roads to home).

Any further info would be wonderfully welcome.

Sue

Our freeway system is the result of President Eisenhower wanting a fast transportation system for military movement inspired by the Autobahn. California has seen the system suffering localised damage to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and sections here in the greater L.A. area. Ironically, we lost motorcycle officers in the Northridge and older Saugus-Newhall tremors on collapsed sections. My past experience with 'quakes, fires and mudslides is that localised areas can be hit hard, but the nature of our urban infrastructure ( fancy name for sprawl) usually leaves ajacent areas relatively unaffected. After Northridge people initially panicked over water. But the trucks with those pretty Arrowhead bottles kept rolling in. Merchants merely fell back on pre computer and in some instances telephone communications to keep merchandise flowing. There was the usual percentage of price gauging, looting and drivers that made our allready aggressive road environment look like a Mad Max outtake. But most people were actually quite decent. If you are in a semi rural situation a good radio is essential, perhaps even a police type scanner or a dedicated unit that receives weather and and other civil broadcasts. I would get to know the CHP etc. at the nearest stations. If somebody knows you live somewhere your part of their consciousness and you can glean future information; which roads are safer for evacuations, local dedicated evac centers etc. I've rolled into closed emergency zones to evacuate horses usually closed even to residents. A known reputation and a case of bottled water go a long way.

I happened to be back in Florida for the last of the three hurricanes, My wife evaced with the kids and her fav possesions.
I stayed put It and rode it out (we live 3 blocks from the beach).
The biggest issue for all my neighbors was lack of electricity and the resulting lack of fridge utilizations.
I slept in my hammock had plenty of food (mres, Dehys and canned goods) we went several weeks without power which is no big deal to me but Florida
is hot in Aug and to be fair FEMA did an outstanding job, and was on station with in 48 hours.
i would recomend having MRE (entrees can be bought by cases w 72 meals or mixed)
Dehys and canned, water storage in poly barrels and able to set up catchment.
I have been in Iraq for over 6 months and we have little if no power when in the field or redzones
you get used to it. but a diesel gen could easily supply needs if you wanted or had the money to spend.
I can provide a list we use here for FOB setup at remote sites which could easily be adjusted to fit needs.
good luck
frogman.

Well a lot depends upon the size of the disaster. The bigger it is the less help you can expect.

Well the first thing that government types will want you to do is move to a shelter where they can control you. As you enter your possessions will be searched and anything that might be dangorous will be confiscated. Read anything the searcher take a fancy to will be classed as contraban. Forget firearms anything that is even hints at being sharp will be long gone. Think boarding an airplane. Further more if deemed you have more than others in the way of supplies they will be destributed for the good of all. About all you will have are the cloths on your back and maybe your own sheets and pillows.

No thank you very much!

If I do have to evac I'll take care of my own needs.

You can find some official British thinking on this at Uk Resilience. It sounds like the police cannot usually require you to leave home, and they can't require you to go to a government refuge.

The London Major Incident manual also makes interesting reading. Some of it seems very buearocratic, but with hard experience of monumental cock-ups lurking between the lines.

Eg: "Within the capital, each of the emergency services and separate police forces have entirely independent radio communications systems. That is not to say that they are totally incompatible but certain procedures need to be adopted to achieve mutual communication." And "It cannot be over-emphasised that the best operational communications will always be conducted verbally between service representatives on site." Reassuring.

I have assumed that the National Guard would be there to begin food, shelter, and water distribution within 48 hours, so I always kept a 72 hour kit on hand. I still think that's the case but I've since expanded it to a 14 day kit. I live in a quake-prone area and frankly I do not want to be out there standing in line for necessities when there will be cleanup work to be done and relatives to look after.

We have not yet had a "big one" in my lifetime, but it's coming. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Regards, Vince

Great question.

In a 'disaster', there is a breakdown of the standard expectations -- an fancy way of saying something gets broken. Loss of power, water, transportaion, heat, etc. Just what and for how long, depends on the nature of the event.

Your planning should start with : What is likely to happen here? To me?

Each area has a few likely events; San Fran has earthquakes, power outages. Maimi has heat, hurricanes, gangs. Winnipeg has cold and blizzards.
Wichita has heat & cold issues, blizzards and tornadoes, but civil unrest is very rare.

Figure out what could or has happened in your climate, then plan for that.

More later

I've been off line over the weekend, good thread, here a few random thoughts.Part of being prepared includes planning. Both natural and "man made" disasters. Are there any main highways or railroad lines nearby ? Need to consider a Hazmat scenario and maybe evacuation. Meeting places both close and out of town. What kinds of busineses and factories are located nearby? What are the chances of looting and lawlessness?
Can you become "cut off" if a bridge or a couple of roads become impassable. 72 hour kits are a great start, but after that preperations should aim towards 1 week. Do you need to be concered about mudslides or trees around your house? Can your driveway be blocked not allowing your vehicles out? If you have to leave, what do you take?
Dave

Hey Frogman12,

Welcome to the forums.

While I cannot speak for the others, I want to thank you for your service and let you know, that your efforts are very much appreciated.

If you need “stuff”, let us know. On this forum, there are many, very generous individuals here, with a lot of knowledge and desire to help out.

We also look forward to hearing from you, what I am sure are many valuable insights and wisdom.

Stay safe.

Pete

Long Island, NY and we have a hurricane season. If we get hit with a hurricane you could loose power for a few days if you have a well you loose water too. So you need to plan water is the biggest issue, I have public water in my new house. Also if you loose power you loose heat. I also have a fireplace and plenty of dry wood stored. The cook top is LP gas so cooking isn't much of an issue. You may loose some items stored in the refrig but if you plan ahead and stock up on ice it's not really an issue. After the storm I will survey the situation it's usually not wise to leave your property during a natural disaster like this. And if you don’t have a need to leave don't go. Downed power lines trees that are ready to topple over are just a few of the potential hazards. It disrupts life for 2-3 days at most but it's predicted that in the near future we will have category 4 & 5 hurricanes on a regular basis, so things might be different.

I also lived through the east coast black out 2 summers ago. Unfortunately I was renting and the owners were too cheap to hook up to public water so I had to use my stock pile of water. It was in the summer so heat wasn't an issue and by the time we went to sleep the lights were on. The biggest problem that day was getting home. Traffic lights were out so caution while driving was important. I and 2 other co-workers were in our office when the lights went out we saved our cad drawings shut the computers off turned on the radio and heard it was quite a wide spread incident. So being the most senior of the present office staff I closed the office told everyone to go home and drive carefully. The lessons learned that day were simple again just prepare ahead of time. Keep you vehicles gas tank topped off. Have stored water. Have a secondary means of light. And have some food items on hand that could be cooked on the grill (again we were renting the stove was elect.)

The biggest problem with what I've faced has been easy to overcome by some simple preparation.

Here''s a few things I noticed after hurricane Ivan. First, I noticed a lot of you mentioned the National Guard coming in after 2-3 days to save the day. We had minimal damage here, but we had NO assistance from the national guard/militaryt at all, and this is with 2 large military bases here, locally. We, here, should all know this but don't count on the government. Period. I'm in a different situation because I'm in the military. They did take care of us. But, I'm not going to get into that becuase it doesn't apply to most people.

I know most of us talk about being prepared for 3 days, but I would consider 1 week to be the bare minimum, 2 would be better. We were told to evacuate Tuesday, Ivan made landfall Thursday, and we weren't allowed to return until Sunday (again, being military, we do our own thing).

Usually I don't let my gas tank go below a half tank, when a hurricane is coming I top off about every other day. If possible, leave at night to minimize traffic congestion. Also, as soon as I had my living arrangements set up at my bug-out spot (hotel)I went and made the necessary phone calls (family and supervisor), then filled up my gas tank (If you can't tell so far I'm paranoid about gas, partly because of this forum).

Once I was away I just tried to relax and not worry too much. I did get a little anxious when I was watching the weather channel and saw one of their reporters showing some pretty serious roof damage on an apartment building only 3 blocks from my apartment. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Needless to say, I started to get worried.

Well, when I finally got the call saying I could come back I did. I lgot the call late at night, and I was too tired to start driving. I left early Sunday morning, before sun-up. I topped off my gas tank before I left. Then I stopped in the last town, before getting home, that I felt confident had minimal damage, and short lines at the gas tank. Then I topped off the tank, again, and filled the 1 gallon tank I keep in my trunk. Then I drove, carefully, the rest of the way home. When I got home, and put the 1 gallon fom the tank, I still had 1/2 tank. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Ok, I'm got home and it was time to asses the damage. I had power, water, but no phone, or cable. The payphones at the gas station down the street worked. The apartment building was doing good, just a few lost shingles. I was lucky among my friends.

Utility crews were brought in from 1/2 way across the country to repair damage. FEMA came in right away and were working hard to get people reimbursed for damages. I didn't see any of the price gouging I had expected. In fact, the commisary had their meat 1/2 off (of course, who knows what condition it was in). <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Some people were without power for up to 2 weeks. I was without a properly working phone for about 3 weeks (they fixed it, then it broke, then they crossed my lines with somebody else, then they fixed it). <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> The utility crews worked their butt off and I am grateful for their hard work.

This is kind of a long post (sorry), but hopefully you can learn a little from my experiences. Also, I didn't have to go through the 3 hurricanes southern Florida did. We just got hit by one tropical storm and 1 hurricane.


Robert

Do not count on anyone's help after a disaster. Be prepared to take the challenge against the elements and other people. All the government authorities do what is right for them, not for you. That is the way it has to be to run the system. If you depend on the government or military etc. you have to live in the system they supply. This may not always suit you.

Depending on the magnitude of the disaster and how it affects you, you will either run a short term emergency plan for few days, or re-organize whole your life. This isn't a pretty thing to think about but it should be done in advance.

If you need to leave your house, do not wait and do not go with the crowd. Do not forget <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />own to devil or up to the throne he travels the fastest who travels alone.

Please take time to read some of the information here to see what you may expect after a major disaster. Belive me, what ever civilazition or system you live in, chaos is chaos since the begining of time and the dynamics of a catastrophic event never changes.

Susan,
just ran across this page. The Military doesn't start moving after 3 days - the Guard moves when called - ditto Red Cross, Salvation Army, Southern Baptists (big supplies of Canteens), ARES, etc

Thing is - they roughly figure it'll take about 72 hrs to have their resources in place once they get the call. I've taken the ARC courses on shelter ops and disaster ops, and have been in a few planning session (I'm the local Emergency Coordinator for ARES). They will NOT be FULLY up do speed at 72 hrs, but they will be a good way along. For instance - we do emergency radio comms - The Florida huricanes and the like show that we are really most useful in the first 48-72 hrs. After that, the phone companies will have enough teams out there that critical comms will be back on line - ditto CRITICAL power - The Cell phone companies will bring in "COWS" (poratable cell sites) etc

Basically figure that for the first 72 hrs, you are basically "on your own" and anyone that is supplying you with "stuff" is relying on the "stuff" that is in the disaster area - including HUMAN resources, which are always in short supply - they have THEIR families to worry about FIRST (all the Vol groups stress this - take care of YOUR family FIRST, then give us your time)

In the first 24 hrs, you'll then start to see semi local help, etc. It's just that things take TIME. I'll give a good example of a "non disaster disaster" The Blackout of 2 summers ago. The Red Cross was out fairly fast - by 8pm or so, there were canteens on the street with water/snacks at some of the major transport hubs. Why not all? Because the local trucks and vols were 100% committed. Why were they not out at 4:30pm when a LOT of people could have used them crossing the bridges on foot? Because it takes time to get people TO the canteens, get them loaded, and get them to where they need to go. The truck I was assigned to do comms with ran out of everything but water and cups by about midnight

The NEXT day, when I came back on shift in the early afternoon, we were sitting pretty - we had trucks from as far as Rochester, we had bottled water out our ears - we had packages of Gatoraide to make mix, etc (and of course no clients - power had been on for 12 hrs)

The first 4-5 hrs will mostly be spent figuring "what happened, and where are we needed MOST" and "what resources do we have RIGHT NOW, and what's coming". They know that they have XXX available ASAP, but that's no where near enough for a major problem - they need to activate stuff out of storage etc

Thank you for all your input. We don't have much in the way of disaster groups here. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> , despite being in earthquake/volcano country. I try to be prepared as much as I can, mainly so I can control my own situation and not be a drain on imported resources. I fully intend to stay home if I'm not forced out by the situation (i.e., firestorm).

Sue

For MANY disasters staying home IS the best thing - the technical term for it is "shelter in place"

Let's hope you never need it

Here is my experience from Hurricane Fran in 1996, in Raleigh, NC.
The storm hit at night, power was out by 10 or so. Battery powered radio broadcast the local tv station, so we got weather reports as the storm went overhead. Next morning, we surveyed the damage, lots of trees down, no electricity, streets blocked from trees and power lines.
Neighbors helped each other make temporary repairs, cleared trees from the streets, and generally had a neighborhood "meet and greet".
Power company employees came by later that day, and told us that it would be days before the power was restored. Radio reports told of the few areas that did have power, what supplies were available at which stores, and gas stations that had power. No big deal, kind of like camping.
Second day, food was starting to go bad, so we had group meals to use up the food, and neighbors continued to get to know each other. Gas grills are a great way to cook all that food before it spoils. Generators are starting to look like a good purchase about now, but they are all sold out. No ice available, food is getting tossed. Yard cleanup began, if folks didn't start the first day.
No help from Red Cross, National Guard, etc. Local authorities are beyond swamped, understandably.
Third day, grocery stores started shipping truckloads of ice and bottled water to the area, much appreciated by all. At that point, I had gotten some ice from work (hospital), and was sharing with the neighbors and friends. Hot water ran out, and I remembered reading about solar showers for camping. Now I realized that I didn't have a non electric can opener, other than a P38, which my 9 month pregnant wife nominated me to use. Okay, cooking on the grill was still working okay. Batteries held out for the radio, but flashlight batteries are in short supply.
Candles are working okay, and we start going to bed earlier. The lack of air conditioning in the hot and humid southeast is starting to wear on the pregnant wife. We heard on the radio that a local cafeteria had power, so we drove there to get some hot food, and cold sweet tea. My wife sat at a booth and drank tea for two hours, and no one said a word to her. She was grateful for the break.
Day four, some of our friends got power back, so the wife hung out at their house. I was working during all this, and we got in touch with her OB/GYN to find out what to do if the labor process started. Neighborhood cleanup continues, and some relief aid starts to arrive. Still cooking on the grill.
Day five, and power returns! Restock the fridge, enjoy air conditioning.
Hot showers! Starting planning on how to do things better next time.
Cable tv was out for three weeks. No rabbit ear antennas available anywhere.
Local radio simulcast the news for about a month, if I remember correctly.
Much price gouging occurred on chainsaws, generators, gas, and ice.
Many people were injured or killed using chainsaws they didn't know how to use.
Many people drowned driving into flooded areas.
Yellowjackets were out in force, as a lot of the nests were flooded, and snakebites were up also.
People drove up from unaffected states to sell us generators at 5 times normal price, and people gladly bought them.
Crooks charged little old ladies $15,000 to cut down single trees, and they went to jail.
And most of us helped each other as best we could, and despite some inconveniences, we got by, and are stronger for it.
And we had power going when our baby boy was born 10 days after the storm. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

In my opinion, some type of Community Emergency Response training is an ideal way to prepare for such a situation. It is not a magic bullet, but it can definitelyt go a long way to creating an organized, self-supporting effort until authorities arrive. See a previous thread here:
http://tinyurl.com/4pu9j

Great rundown, thanks for all the information!

I'm curious as to why hot water would be out? My hot water heater comes on as needed and is independent of electrical power, using a thermocouple (I think). Was your gas shut off?

Sodak:

If your water heater main flame comes on and goes off without outside electricity, it has a thermopile, not a thermocouple. It will keep working as long as the pilot flame is working. Most water heaters use thermocouples and need outside electrical power to open and close the main flame gas valve.

The following is from a web search of "THERMOPILES".

******************************************************************************************************
A thermopile is serially-interconnected array of thermocouples, each of which consists of two dissimilar materials with a large thermoelectric power and opposite polarities. The thermocouples are placed across the hot and cold regions of a structure and the hot junctions are thermally isolated from the cold junctions. The cold junctions are typically placed on the silicon substrate to provide effective heat sink. In the hot regions, there is a black body for absorbing an infrared, which raises the temperature according to the intensity of the incident infrared. These thermopile employ two different thermoelectric materials which are placed on a thin diaphragm having a low thermal conductanceand capacitance. Since this creates a large temperature difference between the hot and cold regions, this structure enables improved detector performance. sp; The thermopile has some unique properties which cannot be duplicated by other detectors. It shows an inherently stable response to DC radiation and is not sensitive to ambient temperature variations.
It responds to a broad infrared spectrum, does not require a source of bias voltage or current.
******************************************************************************************************

Bountyhunter

Actually, I'm going to disagree - conventional gas water heaters don't use any electricity at all, not even internally generated by a junction device. Strictly thermal-mechanical (fluid in the tube). Just replaced mine - yep; still make 'em just like they used to. Except I got one with dual magnesium anodes and a swirl fill tube.

I chose this - conventional type - over a condensing unit specifically because it's immune to electrical outages (plus it will last longer and needs no repairs or maintenance).

If it has a pilot light and it doesn't have a blower, there's no electricity involved.

There are gas water heaters that need some electrical power, of course - condensing units (forced exhaust, high efficiency - whatever name they go by).

Regards,

Tom

Electric hot water. The fiberglass jacket kept the water hot for about 3 days, then we only had cold water. BRRRR!

AyersTG:

You are correct, I was thinking of devices requiring some electricity to activate low voltage devices.

My mistake.

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter,

I knew that you knew that <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> . . . heck, there's no doubt in my mind that you know more nitty-gritty stuff about HVAC in general than I do. Just wanted to let others know that unless they have a fancy gas water heater, it will keep working during a power outage. Now, electric heaters, OTOH...

Tom

(I made a mistake once - no, wait, I'm mistaken about that...)

Well, thank you BOTH for the information. I have really enjoyed this thread, and learned from it. I'm also anxiously awaiting the end of my water heater's life (it's already 10 years old), so that I can take the magnesium anode and have a lifetime supply of firestarter for my sparklite.... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well, this past September, we had an actual, FEMA-declared disaster, when the Delaware River overflowed into Bucks County, PA (pics at www.ubefire.com) .

Now, this was a short-term disaster, however, I think that it was very informative because during the two days of the actual flooding, and in the days after, I was on the front lines of the recovery and cleanup efforts.

Here's what I learned in our incident.

First of all, an evacuation order is not given lightly. We were called to station by emergency management long before the peak of the flooding, and were told to go house to house with the evacuation notice. In most cases, people just asked us "How much time" and we'd say "eight hours, tops, more like six" and they'd get to work either moving stuff upstairs or taking stuff out of the house. One family, right along the river, was out the door with backpacks and all they needed for a few days at a friend's place in a matter of 5 minutes. They must have been pre-packed. But others refused to evacuate, claiming that our evacuation was "over-reacting." Well, sure enough, once the waters were up and really dangerous, we get a call (the phone lines were still up) "The Water Is Coming Into My House! Get Me Out of Here!" - so we dispatch two ATV's and put the boat on standby, and when they get there, the person was standing on their front porch with 5 suitcases and a yappy little dog in one of those doggie bag carriers. They were told they can take ONE and only ONE bag, and we don't care which one. At this point, the guys on the ATV were in danger too. Listen to the evacuation orders. They are serious.

As the incident evolves, water, fuel and groceries (not just food) - in that order - run out quickly. One of the immediate effects of the flooding was the widespread contamination of water wells, due to sewage and oil flowing into them as the floodwaters crept up. Additionally, the power went out, and for people with a well (and that includes us at the firehouse) that meant no water, even if our well was not contaminated (it was).

With the main road through the area out of commission, and the bridge over the Delaware closed (which leads to the only real town in the area) and the one gas station on our side of the bridge under water and without power, we also began to run low on fuel for our ATV's (more on them later) and for our generator.

The floodwaters peaked at about 3:00 AM on a Sunday morning. As the sun came up Monday, the extent of the damage was clear - many houses were submerged, trees were down, there were hundreds of tons of foul, stinking mud everywhere, hissing propane tanks, leaking oil tanks and all manner of disgusting sewage from hundreds of septic tanks that had been flushed out by the flood waters.

But, with the sun rising, we heard all around us the sound of machinery - backhoes, chain saws, portable pumps - as the locals came out to start the cleanup. The roads were impassable due to water, mud and debris.

We had about 125 bottles of drinking water - I'd say that we were short by about 1,000 bottles, given the fact that many people were coming to the fire station seeking water. It took two days for the US Army to bring two trailers with drinking water, which they parked down by the general store. People along the river relied on these water sources for over a month while wells were decontaminated or re-drilled.

We had 20 ATV's, some with trailers at the firehouse, mostly those of members, but local residents loaned a few to the fire company. We deployed search teams to go house-to-house looking for any bodies and to get a preliminary damage assessment. Our fire company also deployed six pump teams to pump out basements. The pump teams were made up of 3-4 people, and each carried a trash pump, 20' of suction hose, 150' (or more) of 3" discharge hose (actually old firehose), fuel, tools and a portable fire radio or FRS radio (we established a "common" channel for the community to use FRS and GMRS radios to reach us, as most phone lines were down).

While pumping out basements kept us busy, our real concern was a fire or medical emergency in our coverage area. Cell phone service is virtually nil in our area, and we got no support at all from the ham radio folks, so part of the job of the pump crews was to be a communications channel in the event of an emergency. This would prove to be a valid concern, because on the 3rd day of the clean-up, we got a call for a structure fire in our area, and while most of us raced back to station to load ATV's with fire hoses and nozzles (we'd use a portable pump for each handline - the fire trucks could not get through), we were able to send an officer to the scene to investigate what turned out to be nothing more than a smoke condition - no fire.

It was not all good. We did experience one nutcase insisting he was "with FEMA" and he was doing solo house-to-house searches, flashing a phony badge to cross the river bridge when it was only open to emergency services workers and at one point, driving into New Jersey (the next state over) to the gas station and telling them to fill is truck and "bill it to FEMA" (they did, then they came after him later for the money). We ended up calling the state police to deal with him. I'm sure in a larger community you'd see more of that sort of thing.

We also closed off the roads leading to our area. At first, this was just to reduce the huge number of sightseers as the floodwaters were rising. Later, it became more important as people claiming to be locals came to "help their brother get their stuff out" once the evacuation orders had been made public. I was manning the roadblock for a while and this guy in a big white truck pulls up and says "I'm going to pick up my brother's stuff for him" and I'm like - "OK, what's your brother's name?" and he goes "Umm….Mike?" and go, "What's Mike's last name?" and he says "Uh….um" and then quickly backs up. This happened more than once - perimeter security matters, as it turns out.

Finally, people don't keep their papers secure. How many tales of woe did I hear about lost documents, lost pictures and more. It's not like a flood isn't a possibility in our area, but for some reason there were heartbreaking stories of lost letters, diplomas and more - all because someone didn't put the documents in a Rubbermaid bins.

Did you guys CONTACT your hams? I know during that flooding, here in NYC we got a mutual aid call to go to Orange County, where we were not needed. I would have gladly run down to Bucks county for the day!!!

One of the big problems we have in ARES/RACES - nationwide is that the local fire/police/rescue people don't want to talk to us when the weather is nice, and neither group then knows how to contact the other when times are bad.

Best bet? Find out who your local SEC/DEC/EC or RACES EC is for your area, and talk to them when you DON'T need them

Bucks RACES is at
http://www.mmrdigital.com/races.html
General PA ARES/RACES is at:
http://www.qsl.net/pa~ares~races/

BTW the difference between ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) and RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) is complex and legal - and in many areas the folks "dual hat". In general - RACES works with Government Agenices, and can ONLY be activated by the President, or a designated agent (Usually a SEMO/FEMA type) and are limited in drill time and the like, but RACES is actualy part of Federal Law. ARES works with NGOs, but is more than happy to work with Governmental groups (MOST ARES teams anyway) when RACES is not activated (RACES is VERY rarely activated - in fact I've seen it done once). ARES is part of the ARRL

If you want more info on who to talk to, feel free to email me

BTW Mutual Aid from where I am would have had to go up 3 levels of command and back down, but like I said, I could have dug up a couple of crews for you - Heck, we sent people up to the Pt Jervis area, and they were surplus, so a detour down to Bucks would not have been too bad

KC2iXE Said:


Yes. I'm a ham operator myself. As a point of reference, we're about to have another major flood here in the valley, I just got back from the Emergency management meeting. Guess who wasn't there? That's right - our regional ACS (we don't do ARES/RACES here anymore) guy.
In fact, I tried to raise up the repeater that he operates, it was down, and the only repeater I could open had nobody listening.

We're opening a shelter, and health and welfare traffic will be via internet and nextel this time.

And, FWIW, it's more like a 72 hour assignment, not a day, and with the roads and bridges all closed, your efforts to get out here would have been thwarted. But please don't think that I don't appreciate it, it would have been nice to have someone like you there tonight.

I know it's 72 hrs - but you take a day here, a day there, it adds up

Rest of reply in PM