AUGUST 2007 CANWARN SEVERE WEATHER AUGUST 3, 2007 SEVERE WEATHER HEADING FOR EDMONTON CANWARN is the Canadian Weather Amateur Radio Network. These are amateurs supporting Environment Canada with eyeball reports of severe weather as it passes through their area. Environment Canada can watch storms coming through on radar and satellite imagery, but they cannot see what is happening UNDER the clouds. CANWARN members are not storm chasers. Rather than chasing the weather, we wait for the weather to come to us! This is one of the easiest, yet most valuable, forms of public assistance because you simply have to pop your head out the window and report on what you see. Whether you are at home, work, or traveling, eyewitness reports of severe weather are important in confirming the predictions and helping warn downwind populations of the severity of the storm. CANWARN members receive training in order to avoid reporting unnecessary information. Rather than reporting “the trees are swaying” or “there’s lots of lightning!” (Environment Canada already knows from their lightning detectors), CANWARN members report on whether the weather has become or is about to become damaging or not. During the summer, wind, hail, rain, cloud rotation and lightning are the principal observations. In winter, freezing rain, snow accumulations and fog may be the critical information. For further pictures and information on CANWARN, visit www.amateurradio.ca/CANWARN.htm. CHARLES CAMSELL ACTIVATION On November 17^th, 2006, ARES Edmonton Region members responded to assist the Salvation Army and City of Edmonton with a fire at a vacant hospital. Due to asbestos concerns, a school and two daycares were evacuated. As well, consideration was given to an area evacuation. The difficult location and toxic environment made this a difficult fire to attack and the response lasted from 09:30 to well into the evening. ARES members VE6KSW, VE6TVN, VE6DKS, VE6SRV, VE6NGR, VE6GDM and VE6TOX responded and numerous others monitored. For numerous pictures, go to www.amateurradio.ca/camsell.htm. THE IMPORTANCE OF SPARES Incident Command requires the response to have spares in case things suddenly get worse or change. While every incident commander knows this, it seems that amateur radio doesn’t realize the safety and flexibility that spares can offer. Here’s an article on how spares can help and how to incorporate spares even when you are working with a minimal number of operators on a callout. www.amateurradio.ca/spares.doc
Emergency, event, and exercise communications
Emergency Communications Disaster Lessons Event Preparation Notes For New Hams Links mail@amateurradio.ca
Amateurradio.ca is a personal site devoted to emergency and event communications, disaster response and the lessons to be learned. As well, the site has general information for new amateur radio operators in and specific information for Vancouver amateur radio operators who are members of VECTOR: The Vancouver Emergency Community Telecommunications Organization and the Edmonton Region ARES group. Most are saved as word.doc unless otherwise noted. Pale articles are awaiting permission to reprint or are being formatted. For those whose computers won’t open the word.doc format, try right clicking on the article and “Save Target As”, then open it from your directory. Thank you for taking the time to visit the site!

CATEGORY	LINK / HTML	WORD DOCS	DESCRIPTION
EMERGENCY COMMS	Radio	EC0 Lessons Not Learned.doc	Presentation made to Communications Academy 2004 in Shoreline, Washington in .doc format
	Radio	EC2 You Must Know ICS	If you don’t know the Incident Command System, you are a liability rather than an asset.
	Radio	EC3 Planning	If you don’t including a planning function, you aren’t responding to the emergency.
	Radio	EC4 Assessment	One of the most important roles is often ignored by amateur radio.
	Radio	EC5 Hospital Communications	Hospitals may be more important than reception centres at the beginning.
	Radio	EC6 Phones	There’s more to phones than simply saying “Phones won’t work…”

DISASTER LESSONS	LINK / HTML	WORD DOCS	DESCRIPTION
	Disaster Response		Principals of Preparation and Coordination by Erik Auf Der Hiede. An excellent book now available only on-line.
	Radio	DL0 AR Fails Summary	A short first draft summarizing why amateur radio does a poor job in many emergencies.
	Radio	DL1 Comms Fail	A short introduction including important notes on an emergency vs. a disaster.
	General	DL2 70 Things	An extensive list of things that will go wrong during a disaster. Fascinating and fun.
	Radio	DL3 Mississauga	An OUTSTANDING summary of the AR response to Canada’s largest evacuation with comments.
	General	DL4 Lokey Medical	A presentation for disaster medicine conference by William Lokey. Good stuff!
	General	DL5 Lokey Planning	More complete notes on William Lokey’s thoughts on Disaster Planning. Very good.
	General	DL6 Disaster Plan	A very personal view of family (and work) disaster plans. Food for thought!
	Radio	DL7 Shadowing	Shadowing – rarely practiced but one of AR’s greatest assets and abilities.
	Radio	DL8 Assisting SAR	The largest SAR effort in Canadian history. Hams can also support Search and Rescue.
	Radio	DL9 USA Today	2003 news article giving ideas on where amateur radio can be used.
	Radio	DL10 Phone Failures	Amateur Radio often fills the gap when the telephone or 911 system goes down.
	Radio	DL11 Earthquake Critique	A report on communications failures after the 1989 S.F. earthquake. Note hospitals.
	Radio	DL12 BC Interior Fires	Panel presentation on AR used in the 2003 forest fires and evacuations of 50,000.
	General	DL13 Disaster Notes	A selection of various notes from a variety of disasters.
	Radio	DL14 AR News Coverage	Great 2003 newspaper article about AR – not just simple one-paragraph filler.
	General	DL15 Lessons Forgotten	A general review of disaster lessons that have not been learned, by Joe Scanlan
	General	DL16 Canadian Disasters	An overview of major disasters, evacuations and events in Canada.
	Radio	DL17 Challenger Debris Recovery	An extensive review of amateur radio’s support of NASA’s debris recovery efforts.
	General	DL18 2002 Ice Storm	North Carolina’s 2002 Ice Storm report from the AR Emergency Coordinator.
	General	DL19 Inside the Ice Storm	Reprint from the Government of Canada’s EP website on the 1998 Ice Storm
	Radio	DL20 Lessons From Hawaii	“Learn from previous learners” – lessons from a hurricane zone.
	General	DL21 2003 Blackout Problems	The 2003 blackout indicates work still has to be done as similar problems still arise.
	General	DL22 Grab and Go Comments	Why I think “Grab and Go” kits are often a waste of time and money
	Humour	DL23 Humourous Hurricane Lessons	Who says you can’t laugh while learning? Yet, there are a couple of lessons…!
	Radio	DL24 California Fires	Quick overview of the 2003 California Fires – the worst ever – with comments.
	Radio	DL25 New Mexico Fires	Quick overview of the May 2000 fires in New Mexico and Colorado. Note on repeaters.
	Radio	DL26 New York 911	An extensive article from www.arrl.org on the 911 response.
	Radio	DL27 Dispatch Failure	Although police and fire systems are robust, they still occasionally fail.
	General	DL28 Pentagon MCI Lessons	Despites years of planning and drills, the Pentagon responders learned new lessons.
	Radio	DL29 Tornado Response	The F4 Hoisington, Kansas Tornado and the AR response.
	Radio	DL30 Apartment Fires	The value of having extra operators.
	Radio	DL31 Earthquake in India	A quick idea of AR communications in a massive and devastating earthquake.
	General	DL32 Filmon Interview	An early interview about the lessons learned in the 2003 fires – see next!
	General	BC Auditor Report (link only)	http://bcauditor.com/PUBS/2001-02/Report1/FireRisks.pdf
	Radio	DL34 Tuscaloosa Tornado	AR response to the December 14, 2000 Tuscaloosa F4 Tornado
	General	DL35 Victoria Snowstorm	Report from PEP on issues and response of the Victoria snowstorm.
	General	DL36 Disaster Dishes	One suggestion for getting your family to talk about planning for emergencies.
	Radio	DL37 Gujurat Earthquake	A summary of the amateur radio response from a disaster communications team.
	Radio	DL38 Pine Lake Tornado	AR response to the fourth deadliest Tornado in Canadian history.
	Radio	Firestorm2003	The British Columbia Provincial Review of the 2003 Firestorm (link to government site)
	General	DL39 1998 Ice Storm	A Canadian Government article on the 1998 Ice Storm
	Radio	DL40 Verglas ‘98	Amateur radio response report from the ’98 Quebec Ice Storm
	General	Canadian Hurricane Link	We don’t get them very often, but they do occur in the Maritimes. (link to report)
	General	DL41 NYFD Radios Fail	An article from ABC reporting radio problems just 6 months before 9/11.
	General	DL42 School Radios Fail	A press release highlighting problems with school safety officer radios in NYC.
	General	DL43 Ambulance Lessons 9-11	Two reports from the ambulance side of the response.
	General	DL99 When You’ve Heard it All	Collection of miscellaneous stories and tidbits about emergencies, disasters, and reception centres.

NEW HAMS		NH1 Get on the Air	Personal comments on programming / operating a radio
		NH2 Ham Plates	How to get BC Amateur Radio vehicle plates and some personal comments.
		NH3 RAC Address	A brief note on why you should consider getting an e-mail forwarding address.
SPECIAL EVENT REPORTS	Radio	SE1 Vancouver Marathon	Debriefing notes from amateur radio operations for the 2002 Vancouver event.
	Radio	SE3 Olympic Radio	For the Vancouver Olympics, this will give an idea of the technical scope of comms.
	Radio	SE4 Manitoba Marathon	Brief notes on how the 2001 Manitoba Marathon was organized.

TRAINING SCENARIOS

There are no training scenarios available at this time.

LINKS AND OTHER	WEB ADDRESS:	DESCRIPTION OF WEB SITES:
	www.rac.ca	Radio Amateurs of Canada web site
	http://alt.pep.sfu.ca	BC Provincial Emergency Program Site including download manuals on BCERMS – the British Columbia Incident Command System.
	http://www.lafd.org/eqindex.htm	Los Angeles Fire Department’s on-line earthquake manual for members.
	http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/crslist.asp	FEMA Training materials on-line.
	www.qsl.net/ve7vct/	Vancouver Emergency Telecommunications Organization
	www.percs.bc.ca	Provincial Emergency Radio Communications
	http://iclr.org	Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
	http://www.ocipep-bpiepc.gc.ca/disaster	Canadian Government site with searchable database on Canadian disasters
	911 Transcripts Link	911 Transcripts and Reports from NYC
	www.bcfmca.bc.ca	B.C. Frequency Modulation Communications Association
	www.bcarcc.org	B.C. Amateur Radio Coordination
	www.aresofkingcounty.org	ARES of King County, Washington
	www.nsarc.ca	North Shore Amateur Radio Club
	www.burnabyradio.com	Burnaby Radio – amateur radio retail
	www.icomcanada.com	ICOM – Amateur radio manufacturer
	www.alinco.com	Alinco – Amateur radio manufacturer
	www.radioworld.ca	Radioworld – an on-line retail source
	www.usfa.fema.gov/applications/publications	US Fire Lessons
	www.commacademy.org	Every March, Washington State holds an excellent weekend conference on Emergency Comms.
	www.telecommunications.ca/history.htm	Some interesting CANADIAN history into the first CW and the first voice-over-radio.
	http://members.aol.com/emcom4hosp/	Hospital Communications with the Hospital Disaster Support Communications System
	www.mods.dk	Radio modifications site with lots of info