The following information was presented by Stephen Misel, K4WEB, on this evening’s Wake ARES Net:
I’d like to announce that Wake County ARES is in the process of bringing in a new served agency, the City of Raleigh Emergency Management.
We were contacted earlier this month by James Mercer, Director of Raleigh Emergency Management. James recognizes the value ARES represents and expressed an interest in forming a relationship with us.
We are in the process of assembling a list of equipment to be installed in the Raleigh EOC. Once this equipment is procured and installed, Raleigh Emergency Management will officially become Wake County ARES’ third served agency, joining North Carolina Emergency Management and Wake County Emergency Management.
When the necessary equipment is operational, we anticipate the ability to operate two dual band VHF/UHF radios and an HF radio with voice and various data capabilities. This configuration is similar to the setup currently in use in our radio room at the State EOC.
Wake County ARES will participate in a small exercise on January 22nd with Raleigh EM. We do not anticipate the need for additional volunteers, since the necessary equipment is not yet in place.
This is a very exciting time for our group. If you’re not currently a member, now is a great time to join. For information on joining, please visit www.wakeares.org.
If you are a member and have not yet completed the mandatory training, we can not deploy you to any served agency for disaster service or drills until this traning is complete and we have your certificates on file. Please understand this is a state requirement and we have no discretion in the matter. The good news is the training courses are available for free online and all required training can be completed in a few hours. For more information on NIMS training, please visit www.wakeares.org and click on the Training tab.
