Before I became an active member of the Yavapai County ARES/RACES organization, I was the Director of Nursing at Wickenburg Community Hospital (WCH). Ever since I began my nursing career in 1971, I had an interest in emergency preparedness. I was actively involved in this aspect of my nursing career in Washington, DC; Putnam, CT; Baltimore, MD; and finally, Wickenburg, AZ. In all my years of participating in emergency preparedness, the amateur radio groups were always a part of our planning; that is, until I came to Wickenburg. For whatever reason, the “Hams” had not been included in the disaster planning. One of my goals after assuming the responsibility of emergency planning was to get these fine people actively involved. I was fortunate that the Yavapai County ARES/RACES organization was not only receptive to the idea of being included in the planning but had been actively seeking that inclusion for some time.
ARES/RACES members participated in our required emergency preparedness exercises and offered valuable insight into our communication shortcomings. The hospital has a satellite clinic in Congress, AZ and there was no effective way to communicate should the “normal” communication systems fail (telephone and internet), short of sending a runner between the two sites. Members of the ARES/RACES organization approached me with a possible solution to this communications gap. Even though by this time I had my own amateur radio license, much of what they were talking about was foreign to me. The members I worked with were kind and patient with me, often repeating the same explanations until I fully understood. We were on our way to installing a MESH network so if, and when, the normal communications were “down” we would have a reliable method of communication with the hospital, allowing us to access confidential patient information, if required, in a very secure fashion.
After September 11, 2001, the Federal Government realized that hospitals were inadequately prepared to handle large scale disasters, whether manmade or naturally occurring. They then set up a grant program so hospitals could apply for funding to help them purchase equipment and supplies to be able to appropriately respond to such events. The Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) was born and continues to provide funding for not only hospitals but other healthcare organizations as well.
Working with the ARES/RACES group to implement the MESH program required identifying what equipment was needed, how much, and the cost. We prepared a budget for this project and submitted a grant request to receive some of the Arizona allotment of funds from the HPP grant. Our grant request was approved, and we began to purchase the necessary items. All the work to install the equipment was performed by members of the ARES/RACES organization (at no cost to the hospital). Once everything was in place, we were ready to test the system. We stationed two members of the ARES/RACES group at the radios, one located in the hospital and the other located in the Congress Clinic. We sent out our request for medical record information and were able to successfully transmit an EKG from the hospital to the Congress Clinic. What a joyous moment as we now knew we would be able to retrieve time-sensitive information, going in either direction, with our new MESH system in the event of a power outage or other communications disruption while maintaining patient confidentiality.
Installing the MESH system was an important component of our emergency communications system, ensuring the ability to communicate with our remote clinic. It was also important to know it worked and worked well, as the hospital was in the process of establishing another remote clinic in Wittmann, AZ. At the time of my retirement, April 1, 2019, there were discussions about installing a MESH network at this facility.
All the members of the ARES/RACES organization with whom I have had interactions are dedicated, professional and genuinely care about improving emergency communications. It was a pleasure working with them in my role as Director of Nursing/Emergency Management before my retirement. After I retired, I became a member of ARES/RACES and hope that I can share my knowledge and experience with others.
Linda Brockwell, MBA, BSN, RN
Director of Nursing, Retired
Wickenburg Community Hospital
The Yavapai Amateur Radio Club (YARC) has, for many years, provided communications for community events across Yavapai County. These events currently number 10 per year, with as many as 13 each year in the past, including the Whiskey Row Marathon, the three-day Whiskey Off Road Bike Event, the Whiskey Basin Trail Runs, and the Skull Valley Loop Challenge. Nearly all of the events could not take place safely without YARC providing communications for these events.
YARC could not support these public service events without the assistance of ARES/RACES. For nearly all of these events, ARES/RACES provides the MARC communications vehicle, with ARES/RACES members directing event communications as net control operators. These ARES/RACES members are highly trained and skilled to manage the smooth communications with YARC members stationed throughout the event course. ARES/RACES net control operators also provide the technical expertise to track course vehicles, staffed by YARC volunteer operators using APRS. ARES/RACES also developed a mobile APRS digipeater, which re-transmits APRS signals to APRS internet gateways and even back to the MARC vehicle, in areas where APRS digipeater coverage is lacking during these events.
ARES/RACES net control operators facilitate disciplined and efficient communications throughout these public service events. Without ARES/RACES support, YARC public service events would be very difficult to manage and conduct safely. We are grateful to have the support of such a partner as ARES/RACES.
Sincerely,
John Snedden KT7P
YARC President
The Yavapai County Jeep Posse (YCJP) is often challenged performing its varied assignments in having enough trained personnel to adequately support these tasks. During June of 2018, the Yavapai County Sheriff assigned the Jeep Posse and other Search and Rescue (SAR) units to patrol the surrounding forest for the National Forest Service (NFS). The objective was to identify any illegal camp fires in the forest to help in the effort to prevent a forest fire.
A request was made for trained amateur radio operators to be assigned as net control operators in the Jeep Posse Communications Room. These operators communicated with Posse and SAR units to track their locations and communicate any issues to the NFS for resolution. YCJP was greatly appreciative of ARES/RACES in providing experienced radio operators who were able to adequately staff and perform the net control function. These ARES/RACES members freed up Posse and SAR embers so that they could more effectively patrol the forest for the NFS. ARES/RACES played an integral role in making the forest patrol effort a success.
Sincerely,
John Walker
YCJP Board President
2/18/2021
As the Yavapai County Emergency Planner, and Planning Section Chief in the Emergency Operations Center during disasters, my role is to work holistically through an incident including response agencies, public organizations, and volunteers, all of whom need reliable and robust communications. The situation in an incident is constantly evolving. The dynamic nature of an incident requires that those involved get accurate and timely information. All parties need to be able to communicate with their group, their leaders, and people outside their direct organization.
Any number of technical or logistical factors, at any level, anywhere in the system, can disrupt incident communications which could create a life safety concern. The EOC needs one reliable, and professional organization we can turn to, regardless of the issue, who can quickly assess and remediate the problem. For years, the organization we have turned to is Yavapai County ARES/RACES. ARES/RACES provides backup when primary communications are out, fills in where communications don't exist, and facilitates and augments communications across the entire incident. Their extensive involvement in every significant incident in the county plus their breadth and depth in communications make them invaluable to us. They have a proven record with Yavapai County Office of Emergency Management of demonstrating their dependability, talent, and dedication to our residents and disaster response agencies.
ARES/RACES is continually working to expand its infrastructure and improve its capabilities to better support our office and Yavapai County as a whole. We fully endorse their project to build a county-wide high speed emergency communication network (YC-ECN) that will provide us and Yavapai County disaster response agencies with the kind of capabilities and resilience in communications that emergency managers and responders in urban areas take for granted.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Chiaravalloti
Yavapai County Emergency Management
Emergency Management Planner
ARES/RACES of Yavapai County volunteers participated during the Cellar Fire which burned July 18-25 2019 and provided emergency communications support throughout this wildfire. We are appreciate of their ongoing support to our front line emergency fire fighters and the Office of Emergency Management.
Alan Sinclair, Incident Commander