ARES/RACES Mission
1. Why ARES/RACES Is Needed
During a civil emergency or natural disaster, demands on local communication systems increase dramatically as disaster response agencies swing into action to deal with the emergency and the general public try to locate family and friends.
Communication systems, driven by economic constraints, are built to handle "normal" every day traffic and do not respond well to the increased traffic generated by an emergency. Cell phones become overloaded almost immediately, followed quickly by the telephone system. Other forms of communications will also become overloaded including repeaters for city employee handheld radios and dispatch systems. To make matters worse, critically needed communication resources can be severely damaged or destroyed by a natural disaster.
911 dispatch systems are typically overloaded even in "normal" times. It does not take much imagination to visualize what will happen in a real emergency. But law enforcement and fire dispatch systems are also vulnerable. These systems can become severely overloaded due to limited personnel available in the dispatch centers to handle all of the emergency traffic coming in. Dispatchers end up putting in long hours which leads to fatigue and mistakes. Even if dispatchers only work their standard hours, the intensity and severity of the incoming crisis traffic will cause fatigue to set in quicker than on normal days. Fatigue leads to mistakes. Mistakes add even more traffic to an already overloaded system as people try to recover from the mistakes. In such situations, prioritizing traffic becomes the only means of survival. Traffic which is not high enough in priority is dropped. What happens to that dropped traffic? Problems that were small eventually become serious do to lack of attention, until they go critical generating a message that does have high enough priority to be handled. Clearly availability of an auxiliary communications service that could be brought in to handle lower priority traffic so that traffic does not become critical would be a valuable service.
Government repeaters are subject to not only over loading but also to panic calling. The handheld radios and repeater channels used by city and county employees are intended for low volume person to person traffic and work very well in every day use. However, in an emergency traffic volume may increase well beyond what the system was designed for. Establishing net control procedures with a net control operator is one way to help solve that problem, but city and county employees do not have training in that area. An even more serious threat is panic. City and county employees that use the radios every day have a general idea of what to and not to do. However, there are a lot of employees that do not use the radios on a regular basis but have them for emergencies. All it takes is one or two untrained people in a panic talking in a wild uncontrolled manner to bring down operations on a repeater.
Telephone service was once a fairly good emergency communications tool when power failures occurred since telephones in homes and businesses were powered by the telephone central office. So even if residential or office power were lost, people could still use their telephones because the phone companies had backup power. In recent years this life line has been diminished substantially by cordless phones and answering machine phones. These phones obtain their power not from the phone companies but from standard residential and business AC power. So if power goes down, so do the cordless phones and answering machine phones. An emergency preparedness plan was to keep one standard telephone plugged in so that if power were lost, at least that phone would work. However, recently phone companies have been replacing the copper telephone lines from customers to the central office with neighborhood concentrators and fiber optic links to cut costs. For example, the copper lines from residences now typically terminate in a concentrator which is then connected to the central office by a fiber optic cable. If commercial power to a concentrator goes down, a storage battery keeps the concentrator "alive" for theoretically 24 hours. However, more realistic estimates indicate that a storage battery may power a concentrator for less than 6 hours. Thus even standard telephones are becoming pretty much useless during emergencies which involve power failures.
The problem just described assumes that if you can reach the central office, your call will go through and you will reach the party that you are calling. This may indeed be the case in the first several minutes of a large disaster. However, as the crisis deepens and the number of telephone calls being placed rises exponentially, a point will quickly be reached where demand for telephone service far exceeds available system capacity. When this occurs the time required to place a call and connect to your called party becomes so excessive, if it occurs at all, that the telephone system ceases to be an effective communications tool.
Cell phones are a particularly serious problem. Because they are so easy and convenient to use, our society has grown to rely on cell phones for most of its communication needs. This accelerating trend applies not only to the general public, but businesses and government agencies as well. This change in focus has a detrimental affect on older forms of communications. Initially the general public used cell phones as an adjunct to their standard telephone systems. Now however, people are increasing canceling their standard phone service and using cell phones exclusively for their communication needs. In the past, businesses and governments relied on VHF and UHF handheld and vehicle radios for their mobile communication needs. Today, cell phones generally provide better day to day service and are less expensive and easier to use. Why should a city employee carry around a bulky heavy handheld radio when they can put a small light weight cell phone in their pocket or purse and achieve far better connectivity? Consequently, today money is by and large being spent on cell phones instead of other communication services that could have provided some degree of backup during an emergency. With cell phone demand growing so rapidly, there just is not much spare capacity in the cell phone system. This means that when an emergency hits, the cell phone system is going to go down hard, and with it the ability of governments, business, and the general public to communicate.
Amateur radio operators, acting through the ARES and RACES programs, are able to help city, county, state, and disaster relief agencies by providing radio communication training classes before an emergency hits, in addition to providing supplemental and backup communication resources during emergencies. In the process amateur radio operators help to minimize the loss of life, reduce pain and suffering, and minimize the loss of property. With the increasing reliance on cell phones, amateur radio emergency communication services are even more important than in the past.
2. ARES/RACES – Two Organizations – One Membership
ARES and RACES are two separate organizations.
ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) is a division of the American Radio Rely League (ARRL). The ARRL is a non-profit organization which is composed of and serves licensed amateur radio operators throughout the United States. ARES provides emergency radio communications support to communities during civil emergencies and natural disasters. ARES is also responsible for training its members in emergency communication procedures and offers training classes to cities, counties, and disaster relief organizations. In addition, ARES provides radio communications in support of community activities such as parades, marathons, bike races, street fairs, and other community and charity events. These events not only serve the community, but also provide a means for ARES members to practice the communication procedures that will be needed during an emergency.
RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) is a federally sponsored organization administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the United States Government. RACES is composed of volunteer licensed amateur radio operators that are activated during government declared civil emergencies and natural disasters. When activated, RACES provides local and state governments with emergency radio communications support.
While ARES and RACES are two separate organizations, within Ventura County the two organizations are composed of the same people and the same leadership. Having one set of members serve both organizations has proved to be very effective for local, county, and state governments. As a result, this dual membership structure is gradually becoming the standard for amateur radio emergency operations across the United States.
Operations under the RACES organization occurs only when RACES is activated by the appropriate government agency in response to a government declared emergency. In Ventura County, RACES is activated by and operates under the direction of the Ventura County Office of Emergency Services (OES). Technically, within California RACES members are classified as communications Disaster Service Workers (DSW) and are covered under State Government DSW accident insurance for the duration of an activation.
Normally ARES/RACES members function as the ARES organization performing administrative duties, recruiting members, conducting training activities, and providing community support. When a RACES activation occurs, ARES/RACES leadership may split the members into two groups, depending on the nature of the emergency. Generally most of the members will be assigned to operate as RACES with direction coming through the ARES/RACES leadership from the Office of Emergency Services (OES is the RACES customer). The remainder will continue to operate as ARES in support of individual city agencies and disaster relief organizations such as the Red Cross. For those continuing to operate as ARES, direction flows through the ARES/RACES leadership from the supported agencies and organizations (these agencies and organizations become the ARES customers). Those assigned to the Red Cross, for example, will become ARES Red Cross communication volunteers for the duration of the event and be covered by Red Cross insurance. Throughout the activation both groups function as a single operational team under the direction of the ARES/RACES leadership. The function of the leadership is to interface with the various customers, negotiate priorities, and manage the ARES/RACES personnel and radio resources to best serve the various customers. At the end of the emergency, RACES is deactivated and all members return to their ARES organizational status.
3. ARES/RACES Is Unique
ARES/RACES has three unique attributes which become vital during a civil emergency or natural disaster. These are:
3.1 ARES/RACES Survivability
ARES/RACES members, along with their radio communications equipment, are dispersed throughout the county. No matter how bad the situation, some ARES/RACES members in some locations will survive and be in a position to help. ARES/RACES members from outside the affected area will also respond as needed in accordance with mutual aid agreements. When a disaster strikes, ARES/RACES members will be there to assist the community.
3.2 ARES/RACES Portability
ARES/RACES is structured to set up and operate emergency communication radio stations:
This is a considerable engineering and operational challenge, but it is what ARES/RACES does.
ARES/RACES emergency radio communication resources include:
Most of these resources are privately owned by ARES/RACES members who volunteer their time and resources during training drills, public service events, and actual emergencies.
3.3 Radio Communications Training
ARES/RACES provides emergency radio communications training to city and county employees, to DART and CERT teams, as well as to its own members. Training includes: