-National Situation Update: Wednesday, May 14, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Chemical Stockpile Exercise - 2008

The Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP) launched its first time ever 8 hour, 3-day long exercise in Eastern Oregon from May 5th through May 7th. Agencies from Federal, Military, State, County, Tribal, and Volunteer organizations, all played into the scenario of a chemical release from the Umatilla Army Depot.

ARES/RACES resource positions were located in County EOC's, Tribal EOC, State ECC's, and American Red Cross facilities, providing backup communications.

The initial response phase of the exercise was followed-up with a recover and re-entry operation of all operations from all the players. Joint Information Centers (JIC), and mock media all played a vital role in getting information to the public, and other agencies.

The most fulfilling aspect of this exercise, was to handle massive amounts of traffic for the Oregon State Defense Force, an auxiliary of the Oregon National Guard, utilizing the Oregon ARES Digital Network (OADN) and the Winlink2000 System from the Umatilla County EOC, to the Military Department at the State ECC.

As an added note, a number of National Guard Field Communication Teams were placed around the area for the exercise. One of these Field Comms was placed just out-side of the Umatilla County EOC. The ability to interface a Amateur Radio into their system is possible I was told.

With some 190+ message being passed, some of which being ICS-213's, EEI reports, a ICS-202, and tactical traffic, more could have been passed, however other issues arose druing the exercise far beyond the roll of the ARES/RACES operation. But overall, all the players had positive results.

Since this exercise went on for three days, I'll cut this short, and include some pictures of activities, along with the radio log from the Umatilla County ARES/RACES Communications Center.

Locations that supported ARES/RACES Operations:

Morrow County ECC
Umatilla County EOC
Joint Information Center (Umatilla EOC)
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation EOC
American Red Cross Operations at the Veterans Hall in Pendleton Oregon
Oregon Office of Emergency Management
Washington Department of Emergency Management
Benton County (Washington State)Emergency Management

Umatilla County ARES/RACES Comms Center Radio Log

Umatilla CSEPP EX-08 Exercise Pictures

-National Situation Update: Sunday, April 13, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Field Day Activity - 2008

The Umatilla/Morrow County ARES/RACES (UMESRO), will have its Field Day activity in the parking lot of Pea Ridge Embroidery, on North HighWay 395 in Hermiston Oregon.

Check-out the ARRL's Field Day Locator for Field Day Operation near your area

Field Day is the last full week-end in June

-National Situation Update: Monday, March 17, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Airmail & Winlink2000 Training Session #2

The second go-around of the Airmail & Winlink2000 Training Session will be at the Umatilla County Emergency Operations Center on Saturday March 22nd at 1200 noon. This training session will encompass what was in the first training session, plus more of the other features in the Airmail program.

An RMS Packet gateway will be provided at the training session, so make sure you bring your go-kits!

-National Situation Update: Sunday, March 02, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Clatsop County Emergency Communication Commendation Certificates

Don Hillgaertner (WA7TEM), the Clatsop County Emergency Coordinator requested certificates recognizing those who put extra effort into supporting communications during the floods and for those who provided infrastructure critical to ARES operations.

Certificates were provided to:
Clatsop County ARES Unit
Sunset Empire Amateur Radio Club
Seaside Tsunami Amateur Radio Society

Individuals recognized are:

N7BAG – Brad Gulleff. He proposed, engineered, and installed the radio stations in both of our hospitals. This, plus his UHF link in to Portland’s H.E.A.R.T. system kept a two-way link throughout the duration of the storm. Add to that, that he operated one of the hospital stations while working his full-time job.

KD7NNQ – Frank Van Winkle. Frank acted as net control from Astoria’s 9-1-1 center, the County Emergency Operations Center, & did most of the paper work for the reports after the storm.

KE7LWQ – Charles Roy. Charles was our main link to make several telephone calls to anywhere. He lives in Longview & did not lose phone service while we were down. He never hesitated to make a long distance call & seemed to be on the air at any hour during the entire six days of our phone interruption.

N7LWQ – Marque Marriott. Marque’s unique location & well engineered amateur station provided Clatsop with our only VHF link in to Multnomah & Washington counties. Marque was often on the air between midnight & 8 AM and was always available to relay traffic to & from the valley.

N7JED – Steve Larkins. Steve provided the only reliable VHF contact with the Tillamook system. The Larkins had spent a great deal of money in 2007 defending their right to have a useful tower for their antennas. The usefulness of this tower certainly was apparent as N7JED was our only VHF link to Tillamook.

AB7HO – Roxann Holwege. Acted as net control at Providence Seaside Hospital. Roxann was instrumental in teaching classes to bring in new Ham radio operators which allowed us to have the required in-depth coverage in Clatsop County.

AB7DN – Jeff Howlege. Acted as net control at Seaside’s 9-1-1 Center. Jeff was instrumental in teaching classes to bring in new Ham radio operators which allowed us to have the required in-depth coverage in Clatsop County.

KB7SI – Terry Wilson. Acted as net control from our mobile radio center ( a 1970 vintage bus) which had been pre-positioned on a hill top in Astoria. Terry picked up all of the radio relay functions during the several times that the Clatsop County Emergency Operations Center radios, were down due to generator failure.

KE7NIU – Grant Shimer. A newly minted ham (2007 May 22), Seaside Police officer Shimer went door to door alerting Seaside Amateurs to activation of the amateurs as part of the emergency plan. He continued to utilize the combination of amateur & public safety radios to relay emergency updates throughout the duration of the storm.

KA7SGB – Mike Gore. Mike not only acted as one of the prime relay points in rural Clatsop County, but also volunteered for a mission requiring his unique background. KA7SGB was airlifted by a Coast Guard helicopter to the mountain top repeater site to refuel the generator & re-activate the public safety repeater systems. The helicopter was unable to return due to the severe weather conditions & Mike had to wait until ground personnel using 4WD vehicles & chain saws could cut their way up the road.

W7FBM - Jay Shepherd. For instaling & maintaining the Main repeater system used in Clatsop & Pacific counties.

NM7R - Franke Wolfe. For instaling & maintaining the Main repeater system used in Clatsop & Pacific counties.

N7HAE - Joe Johnston. For his work with Winlink2000. He passed a lot of messages between Clatsop County and OEM and a message was being received from him when the governor's special assistant came into the radio room at OEM to look around.

These folks truly deserve to be recognized for their contributions above & beyond the outstanding job done by ALL of the amateurs who opearted throughout this disaster.

Don Hillgaertner (WA7TEM)

Clatsop Emergency Coordinator

wa7tem@arrl.net

Source: Oregon ARRL Section News

-National Situation Update: Sunday, Feburary 10, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Statewide Communications Plan Update

A revised Oregon ARES/RACES Section Operations Manual & Statewide Communications Plan has been distributed to the masses.

Source: Revised Oregon Section Op's & Comm Plan

-National Situation Update: Saturday, January 19, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Clatsop County Activation for Communications Emergency

TIME OF INCIDENT START: 0803 1/18/08
TIME OF INCIDENT COMPLETION REPORTED: 2320 1/18/08
15 minutes later - they were reactivated.

On Friday, 1/18/2008, Clatsop County had a communications emergency involving the 911 system being down and no phone service in most of the county. Columbia County assisted in handling 911 calls by rerouting as needed.

Clatsop County ARES assets activated and deployed personnel to police, fire, USCG, and medical facilities per their standard operating procedure (SOP).

Columbia County ARES monitored the Columbia County EOC ham room, but were not activated.

At 1418, the 911 capabilities were partially restored in the southern part of the county. The rest of the county was going through fire department communications.

At 2320, service was restored and the Clatsop County Sheriff's Office had the ARES assets stand-down.

0658 hrs 1/19/08 report from D1 DEC, David Kidd KA7OZO

Got a phone call asking me to come up on 146.66 repeater. when I did I was informed by the Clatsop Co EC that 15 min after they told us things were fixed, something broke resulting in a total break down of telephone communications in Clatsop Co again. The reported repair time is at least 12-hrs from 0600 this morning.

The Clatsop Co EC asked for (6) personnel to support his operation in Clatsop Co. I have started to meet this request by contacting Washington Co ARES since one of the requested locations is the Elsie FS and then will be calling adjacent counties to Clatsop Co.

0915 hrs 1/19/08 report from D1 DEC, David Kidd KA7OZO

At the present time the following deployments from D-1 counties are as listed in support of the emergency:
Clackamas Co: 2 to Clatsop EOC
Washington Co: 2 to Elsie Fire Station
Columbia Co: 2 to Napa Fire Station>br> Tillamook Co: 2 to Clatsop EOC for further deployment as needed
Multnomah Co: has 2 personnel on stand-by if needed

1224 hrs 1/19/08 report from D1 DEC, David Kidd KA7OZO

Clatsop Co EOC released all ARES assets at 1200 hrs this date after telephone communication systems were reestablished and fully operational.

District-1 supported this even with personnel from other D-1 counties:
Columbia Co - 2 (deployed to Napa FS)
Clackamas Co - 2 (deployed but held up at Hwy #26 and tunnel per DEC instructions)
Washington Co -2 (deployed to Elsie FS)
Tillamook Co - 2 (deployed to Astoria EOC)
Multnomah Co - 2 on stand-by

and it is unknown at this time how many Clatsop CO ARES personnel were involved in this operation.

Once again ARES personnel provided a needed service at the request of a county emergency manager. ARES personnel met the challenge and provided the needed service and manpower to minimize the impact on Clatsop Co residents.

District-1 PIO was able to make media contacts and was interviewed by several stations during this two day event. KE7JSS has done a great job bringing ARES to the forefront during the recent activations.

As the DEC of D-1 I am proud of what our people accomplished during this event. This event showed the good team effort put forth by District-1 personnel by deploying manpower to needed sites and in a proper timely manner at the request of the DEC and Clatsop Co EC.

A check with the various county ECs was made. They were informed that their personnel had been released back to their control and were on their way back to their home counties after stopping for lunch and refueling.

The Clatsop Co EC will be submitting the ARRL Public Service Report soon.

If you have any questions concerning this activation or any District-1 matters, please feel free to contact me.

CUL & 73

David M. Kidd
KA7OZO
District Emergency Coordinator (ARES)
Oregon ARES District One

Posted by Bonnie Altus, Oregon SM on Saturday 19 January 2008 - 08:32:10

Source: Oregon ARRL Section News

-National Situation Update: Friday, January 18, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

$250,000 OADN (Oregon ARES Digital Network) Grant

The Governor's remarks about Ham Radio Operators being "the real heroes" are well known and widely disseminated by now; but what you may not know is that the Governor's Special Assistant for Emergency Preparedness spent a lot of time observing things in the OEM ECC (Oregon Emergency Management Emergency Communications Center) and ARU (Amateur Radio Unit) during the flood incident.

He was particularly impressed by what he correctly identified as a "digital message" system that was getting hard-copy messages to and from the affected areas on the Coast. More than 170 messages in fact. Vince VanDerHyde, K7VV, gave him a brief overview of the Winlink system, and explained that the equipment was all personally owned by individual hams, and that the availability of it varied greatly by county, with some parts of the state not having any, other parts with some, but only to the extent that one of more local hams or organizations were willing to pay for it and allow its use for disaster purposes. Even the SCS Pactor modem at OEM was paid for by private monies of the ARU, not the State.

A few days later he was back asking, "how much money do you need to put one of these systems in every County EOC in the State?" That is how it all started. A group of the ARES/RACES leadership along with OEM staff are working on out the details and as more information is available, it will be distributed through the ARES/RACES leadership. I will also post appropriate details on the section website and distribute throughout the section as more information is known.

Source: Oregon ARRL Section News

-National Situation Update: Sunday, January 13, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Up Coming Winlink2000 Training Session

Airmail, a Packet/Pactor/Telnet client software used to communicate with the Winlink2000 system, will be the topic of a training session, Thursday January 17th at 6pm, at the Umatilla County Emergency Operations Center in Pendelton Oregon. This session will focus on some of the back ground highlights of Winlink2000, and the installation and configuration of the Airmail software, to communicate into the Winlink2000 system.

User are reminded to bring their Packet gear, so that they can "connect" via RF to the TelPac Gateway that will be provided at the session.

Umatilla County Emergency Management
4700 NW Pioneer Place
Pendleton, OR 97801

-National Situation Update: Tuesday, January 08, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Oregon Governor Allocates $250,000 for Digital Communications Network

The State of Oregon's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) received $250,000 from Governor Ted Kulongoski's Strategic Reserve Fund to further develop and enhance a statewide Amateur Radio digital communications network, announced ARRL Oregon Section Manager Bonnie Altus, AB7ZQ.

"This network, the Oregon ARES Digital Network (OADN), already uses a combination of different radio equipment and spectrum segments, computers and the Internet to provide a robust backup communications system in times of disaster. With its enhancements, all Oregon counties will be able to communicate with the state OEM," she said. "In December, this system proved its usefulness in the storms and floods by utilizing Winlink stations in Lincoln and Clatsop Counties to communicate with OEM. Early in that activation, the OEM's Amateur Radio Unit found they were not able to keep up with maintaining a complete log of communications when using voice communications, but Winlink activities maintained an automatic log for them."

According to Altus, the primary purpose of the OADN is to provide back-up digital communications capabilities between county Emergency Operations Centers and Oregon Emergency Management and other state agencies in Salem, in the event that normal communications systems fail in an emergency.

During the December storms, Amateur Radio operators were there to help. After a visit to one of the severely affected towns, Governor Kulongoski said, "I'm going to tell you who the heroes were from the very beginning of this...the ham radio operators. These people just came in and actually provided a tremendous communication link to us." Oregon's OEM said the radio operators were "tireless in their efforts to keep the systems connected. When even state police had difficulty reaching some of their own troops, ham radio worked, setting up networks so emergency officials could communicate and relaying lists of supplies needed in stricken areas."

Through an Intergovernmental Agreement between the individual county Emergency Mangers and Oregon's Office of Emergency Management, ARES/RACES groups in each county will be responsible for installation, maintenance and operation the network.

Information Source - ARRL

-National Situation Update: Friday, January 04, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

Umatilla County EOC Activation - January 04, 2008 Windstorm

Pendleton, Ore. – The Umatilla County Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in Pendleton Oregon was activated shortly after 8:30 am in response to an event involving severe winds causing extensive damage in and around eastern Umatilla County cities.

They are coordinating response activities with the cities of Weston, Milton-Freewater, Athena, Adams, Pilot Rock and Helix. They have also made contact with Umatilla County Public Health and Oregon Emergency Management. Local American Red Cross representatives have also been contacted in the event that shelters are needed for area residents.

There was no ARES/RACES activation during this event

Source: Umatilla County Emergency Operation Center

Images of over-turned trucks on I-84 at Cabbage Hill

Images provided by Oregon State Police

-National Situation Update: Tuesday, January 01, 2008-
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED). (DHS)

UMESRO Communication Plan Update

The UMESRO Emergency Communication Plan had been updated as of December 31 2007. This update includes operation details of area Winlink2000 Gateways, HF frequencies for both Oregon State and Washington State, along with VHF/UHF information for Operation Centers, and Command and Control Nets.

The Updated Communication Plan can be viewed from the Documents Section under "PDF Documents"