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ARES After-Action Report:
Simulated Emergency Test (SET) 2000

by Ron Poinsett (W3DKH), Administration Officer,
District 24, Douglas & Elbert Counties, 04-Nov-2000
  1. Date of activity: November 04, 2000

  2. Description of activity: Simulated Emergency Test.

  3. Duration of activity: 06:50 thru 11:57, 5 hrs 7 min.

  4. Serving amateur radio groups participating
    • ARES District 24 (Douglas & Elbert Counties)
    • ARES District 14 (El Paso & Teller Counties)
    • El Paso RACES

  5. Served agencies participating
    • Douglas County Emergency Preparedness
    • Mountain Communities Fire Department
    • Elbert County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center
    • Parker Police Department Dispatch

  6. Describe served agency participation: Douglas County OEM designed and coordinated the SET along with OEM personnel from both El Paso and Teller counties. Elbert County Sheriff’s Dispatch and Parker Police Dispatch served as the source for rollover 911 traffic during the simulated 911 outage. Mountain Communities Fire Department provided simulated response to the test avalanche incident on Hwy 67.

  7. Number of amateurs participating: Twelve D24 Members

  8. List of amateurs participating: AB0NF, AB0PG, KA0PII, KA0WAS, KA9ODE, KB0VJY, KC6FLM, KC6WZP, N0VK, W0RMJ, W3DKH, W6AUN

  9. Person-hours of amateur service: 60 hours

  10. Describe the Goals of the Activity
    • SERVED AGENCY: Test inter-agency and inter-district communications and coordination.
    • SERVING GROUP: Develop interlinking of three county Amateur Radio groups (Douglas County ARES/RACES, El Paso RACES, and El Paso/Teller ARES). Deploy and exercise the maximum number of Amateur Radio Operators.

  11. Did the Event Fulfill the Goals?: Partly (80%). Messages between Teller OEM and Douglas OEM were exchanged. Timeliness was marginal. The messages between El Paso OEM and Douglas OEM were exchanged but none were recorded traffic. Full time OEM-to-OEM links did not exist. Douglas/Elbert ARES deployed all the members who responded to the Call Out including one reserve list member and two mutual aid members from D-14.

  12. What Went Well?: D24 Net Control (KB0VJY) was understaffed but managed to keep all members posted on the status of the event and the location of deployed members. This included calling members for status who had not been heard from recently. The operator at DCSO (AB0PG) handled numerous simulated 911 messages and responded with realistic answers where needed.

  13. Areas needing improvement: Local handling of public safety message traffic needs to be practiced. Net operations need to be streamlined with an eye toward ensuring that everyone with traffic can pass that traffic in a timely manner. Techniques for county-to-county direct communications need to be developed.

  14. Lessons learned: Message handling and net operations must be practiced on a regular basis, as these skills become rusty with non-use. D-24 needs to consider if a more conservative deployment strategy is needed during low response events in order to cover fewer locations more effectively.

  15. Additional training needed: The structure and concept of a Tactical Message should be presented to new members and reviewed by all members.

  16. General comments: The intensity of traffic with several incidents occurring at random intervals gave everyone a feeling that this SET was more realistic than some real incidents. District 24 was very appreciative of the mutual support given by ARES District 14 in covering the southern border of our county where all the action was and the “weather” precluded us from access.

  17. Ideas for future exercises: We still need an exercise to stress our skills in victim tracking. All the victims in this SET were tracked by D-14.