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Earthquake drill prepares for major disaster

Trained indi­vid­u­als took part in the Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Earth­quake drill in the USA and Cana­da, with up to 20,000 peo­ple includ­ing radio ama­teurs, fire­fight­ers, the Com­mu­ni­ty Emer­gency Response Team and Red Cross mem­bers, the med­ical reserve, law enforce­ment and oth­ers involved. 

The exer­cise, over­seen in the USA by the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (FEMA), was held on June 7–10 had emer­gency radio traf­fic, crowd con­trol, res­cues and many injured being treated. 

For an inter­op­er­abil­i­ty test, FEMA had 5 MHz chan­nels so ser­vices could talk to each oth­er. In a dis­as­ter, the Inter­net and phone ser­vice would be sev­ered or impact­ed, with ham oper­a­tors act­ing as mes­sen­gers for emer­gency offi­cials as they save lives and pre­vent more damage. 

Bruce Bjerke K7BHB the Ore­gon Sec­tion Emer­gency Coor­di­na­tor Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Ser­vice says radio ama­teurs had a role to play in such exer­cis­es and wel­comes the opportunity. 

They were pre­pared with mes­sage forms, Win­link email, HF nets, VHF and HF data traf­fic, repeaters and simplex. 

Hams were able to set up email-type ser­vices for emer­gency man­age­ment offi­cials, to bridge the gaps, as emer­gency offi­cials scram­bled to save lives and pre­vent more damage. 

Sim­i­lar reports came from Cana­da where ham radio oper­a­tors were able to pick up the slack when oth­er forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion were knocked out. 

More than 60 dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and 600 peo­ple were involved in  the three-day exer­cise, includ­ing Emer­gency Man­age­ment British Colum­bia, Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police, Sal­va­tion Army, Red Cross, Coast Guard, First Nations and the radio amateurs. 

The Cowichan Val­ley Ama­teur Radio Soci­ety Pres­i­dent Steve Brad­shaw par­tic­i­pat­ed in British Colum­bia, as part of provin­cial prepa­ra­tions for a response to a major earthquake. 

He said when every way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing was cut off dur­ing an earth­quake exer­cise on the West Coast of Van­cou­ver Island, Ama­teur Radio stepped in with a call for help to the out­side world. 

For exam­ple tele­phone lines, mobile and wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tions were knocked out in the sim­u­lat­ed sce­nario, but vol­un­teer ham radio oper­a­tors man­aged to con­tact a Cana­di­an Forces long-range patrol air­craft fly­ing over the Rock­ies to broad­cast res­cue information. 

A num­ber of prais­es were received, includ­ing Nao­mi Yamamo­to, British Columbia’s Emer­gency Pre­pared­ness Min­is­ter, who said the oper­a­tors made his­to­ry by com­mu­ni­cat­ing direct­ly with the Cana­di­an Forces air­craft on Ama­teur Radio fre­quen­cies. The radio vol­un­teers proved their worth as a vital life­line dur­ing a disaster. 

The Cas­ca­dia zone is off the coast of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia through to British Colum­bia and Alas­ka, and is long over­due to release built-up stress. 

The exer­cise iden­ti­fied response improve­ment for a magnitude‑9 earth­quake and killer tsuna­mi in the Pacif­ic North­west coastal com­mu­ni­ties with more than eight mil­lion people. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee

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