SSEPO frequently organizes county-wide drills in San Mateo County, such as the Great Shakeout in 2021. In 2023, we began participating in similar drills in Santa Cruz County, specifically in the San Lorenzo Valley. These drills make sense for our region because emergency response and dispatch in the Santa Cruz County portion of the South Skyline area comes from this region.
Drill Format
The April 29th drill focused on the Bonny Doon area with established CERT teams:
- At 10:00 AM, ARES net controls opened a net from the radio room at the county Emergency Operations Center in Santa Cruz, with four repeaters available.
- Also at 10:00 AM, CERT communications officers and neighborhood coordinators began a roll call of members on their MURS channels. Neighborhood users were asked to stand by for a message; CERT teams were asked to report to their rally point by 11 AM.
- Neighborhood coordinators called into the net and reported the number of MURS check-ins, then were given a message from OR3 to report back to their group.
- CERT team members received a text message at 10:30 AM to activate and report to their rally points by 11:00 AM.
- CERT communication officers checked in and reported to the ham net with the number of MURS contacts and the number of volunteers available. They communicated the OR3 message back to MURS check-ins and rally point members.
- ARES members deployed as mobile stations to public facilities and checked in to the net, reporting location, radio type, and antenna.
The net closed and the exercise was complete at 12:00 noon.
Results
The test went off as designed. SSEPO participated via our communications trailer manned by Bryan Osborne. We had good connectivity, and received praise for clear, easy-to-understand check-ins.
One major learning: having a lot of MURS traffic causes stations with better line-of-sight coverage to step on transmissions from other stations. This will require more attention — particularly if Las Cumbres joins in, with its commanding location above the valley.
Next step: Organize more community participation in these drills in our area.