The ARES Exercise scheduled for Saturday March 12th, 2005 has been cancelled. The reason for the cancellation is that we have had numerous ARES and SKYWARN Activations for what has been a very active winter in Eastern Massachusetts. The latest activation on Monday Evening February 28th into Tuesday Morning March 1st had numerous Amateurs up through the night monitoring coastal flooding, reporting snowfall and reporting damage and power outages from the heavy, wet snow that fell over the region. Luckily, damage was not significant enough to result in shelter operations in the areas most affected by damage and power outages, which was Southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod and the Islands.
This exercise scenario will be utilized at another time, potentially for the Fall SET in the October-November timeframe. A scenario had been drawn up for this exercise in advance and will simply need a frequency plan and some minor edits and the exercise will be fully planned.As far as further exercises, Eastern Massachusetts ARES will have a remote support role in the TOPOFF exercise that will be occurring in Connecticut the week of Monday April 4th through Friday April 8th. Most ARES personnel in the section will be asked to support that remote function in some form and further details will follow in later postings. In addition, the Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section will be attempting to organize an ARESMAT to support Connecticut ARES with a team sent into Connecticut to perform the various functions Connecticut ARES has requested. Those that we select for the ARESMAT team will be done by invitation only with the invites being sent by myself or the DEC for the appropriate area contacting specific individuals to see if they are interested in supporting the ARESMAT. There shall be no self-deployments into Connecticut for TOPOFF as if you have not been properly registered and have credentials, you will not be allowed to participate and could result in serious legal consequences if you show up without going through the proper process. Also, during the week of the TOPOFF exercise, MARS will be having an exercise on Sunday April 9th and further details on that exercise will follow in later postings.
After the exercise in early April, a Statewide Hurricane Exercise will be done on the first Monday of June 2005. This is typically a MEMA Region II exercise but this year, it will be expanded to be a statewide exercise. Further details on this exercise will also follow in later postings.
This is shaping up to be another active year for Eastern Massachusetts ARES in 2005. If you have any questions or feedback, please contact your local EC/DEC or myself with those questions or feedback.
Respectfully Submitted,
Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Pager #: (508) 354-3142
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 1-800-445-2588 Ext.: 72929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://users.rcn.com/rmacedo 1