Operation North Wind
2006
"Operation North Wind" a Simulated Emergency Test held on December 9th in the Virginia Section was a huge success. This emergency communications drill was participated in by at least 87 hams that operated from 57 locations. Much of the activity took place in the 40 county area covered by the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg Virginia. Due to the massive nature of the simulated storm, hams across the Virginia Section participated in supporting the areas that were in the simulated impact area. This event also included the National Traffic System in the Virginia Section. There were two NTS nets that operated simultaneously during the SET, passing health and welfare traffic that was moved outside the impact area by digital modes (packet and Winlink). The traffic was then passed to local areas via the voice and CW nets.
The National Weather Service opened the exercise by issuing simulated forecast bulletins on the 10 repeaters that serve as Skywarn repeaters for the forecast area. This bulletins were issue on December 8th. Skywarn was activated the following morning to open the SET. The Blacksburg office continued to be active throughout the SET. The scenario consisted of a snowstorm reminiscent of a couple of storms that hit SW Virginia in the 1990's. In the eastern forecast area the simulation was an ice storm with 1" of ice on road surfaces and utility lines. Having the Skywarn nets in operation eliminated the need to utilize "calling trees" and other call-up vehicles to alert the Amateur Radio community as we moved from Skywarn into our role of communications support for many agencies.
This major storm event created stranded traffic on Interstate highway systems along with communications and power failures throughout the impact area. Blocked Interstates created the need for mass migration (40,000 people from I-77), which is a disaster within itself. This required opening shelters, providing 4-wheel drive radio equipped vehicles that provided transportation for stranded motorist and medical transportation. Agencies such as the Red Cross, rescue squads, Emergency Operations Centers, E-911 Centers, hospitals, search and rescue units, shelters and the National Weather Service were supported by ARES units.
There was also a group of hikers that was caught by this storm system while they were backpacking through the Mount Rogers Wilderness area. They were located at an elevation above a mile (5540 ft) above sea level where the simulated snowfall was in excess of 3 feet. These hikers had one ham in the group but the microphone on their HT failed due to getting wet in the storm. There were 2 medical problems with the hikers. The rescue party that was sent to find the "lost hikers" was carrying direction-finding equipment, and APRS. They copied CW sent with the PTT on the HT microphone of the lost hikers. Hams located at Whitetop Mountain Shelter and the Wythe County EOC monitored the progress of the rescue team on APRS mapping software. The hikers were found within about 2 hours after the rescue team began their search.
Hundreds of pieces of traffic were passed on tactical nets across the Virginia Section during this drill.
Most of out our stated goals for the SET were achieved. These included passing traffic between multi-agencies and jurisdictions. ICS-213 forms were used for this tactical traffic. We utilized Radiograms for the handling of health and welfare messages. We utilized many modes and bands to communicate across Virginia and into neighboring states. ARES used HF voice and CW, VHF FM on repeaters and simplex, digital modes such as APRS, packet and Winlink along with VHF direction finding techniques.
We tested our ability to provide vital weather related information to the NWS via our 10 designated Skywarn repeaters. Our mutual support system was also tested as appeals were made to locations all across the Commonwealth of Virginia for supplies, equipment and needed personnel. We used the Section database information to locate hams that had 4-wheel drive vehicles with 2 meters installed from across the state. We had 5 pages of listings on ARES members that had registered their radio equipped 4-wheel drives.
The SET provided a real challenge in operating conditions over a wide geographical area with varied topography. The impact area ranged from over 5500 ft in the mountains to a few hundred feet in Franklin, Henry and Pittsylvania counties. Weather varied from heavy icing to huge snowfall, falling temperatures and extreme winds.
There are meetings planned for evaluation and critiquing of this training exercise. The first will be held at the Carroll County Virginia EMS building located on Floyd Pike in Hillsville Virginia on January 22 at 7:30 p.m. There will be a second meeting held in the Roanoke Valley to review this training event. The second meeting date will be announced at a later date. These meetings are open to the public with the ham community and agencies encouraged to attend and contribute their input.
All reports on "Operation North Wind" have not been submitted at this writing but from those that we have received, our score is over 2700 points for this one exercise. We have learned a tremendous amount from this event and especially the new ARES members. These new hams have also grown in confidence due to their participation. One county had 15 of their 25 members that met the criteria as new hams for this exercise (licensed since Jan of 2002). Our score on this SET along with other local SETs should place us among the top Sections in the nation again this year.
In the early planning this Simulated Emergency Test was planned as a local SET but continued to grow in scope and interest as the plan unfolded. Next year it would be great to have a planning committee from across the Section and make the SET a true Section wide event. I want to extend a special thanks to all the Section and ARES leadership for their time and effort in making this training a great experience for all.
Glen Sage, W4GHS
Virginia Section Manager
