Introduction to the California Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CARES)
Introduction to the California Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CARES)
CARES also has a two complete HF field radio stations, VHF- UHF field stations, all with both voice and digital capability, and a supply of Ham Radio Hand-Held Radio Units.
CARES is fully supported by the participating State medical and health departments listed below, and integrated into their response plans. CARES will be part of the initial deployment of State resources to a disaster area, and will be present at all major medical and health response locations.
While the CARES Amateur Radio system is organizationally a sub-set of the State ACS (Auxiliary Communications System) system and is covered as an appendix to the State's Emergency Communications Plan, direct management of CARES is exercised by the Emergency Coordinators in the State Health and Welfare Agency departments through the CARES Radio Officer. In addition to the OES Headquarters and Regional Amateur Radio stations, State Agencies such as Caltrans and General Services (Communications, State Police) have developed similar Amateur Radio backup communications systems.
In terms of response, each agency has the following responsibilities:
Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) - in conjunction with the California National Guard, to get needed medical supplies into a disaster area, and medical evacuees out to hospitals in unaffected areas. This is a monumental task, considering that the planning estimates for a catastrophic disaster in California are in the neighborhood of 10,000 dead and 50,000 injured.
Department of Health Services (DHS) - to provide support to EMSA in Sacramento (EMSA is a very small agency - 15 employees, and needs staff support from DHS to manage a disaster response of this proportion). Also, DHS has their own responsibilities in the public health areas of toxics, sanitation, disease control, water supplies, etc.
Department of Social Services (DSS) - provides State assistance to the care and shelter function - primarily the Red Cross.
Department of Mental Health (DMH) - provides mental health services to disaster workers through Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) teams.
Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) - provides support to local agencies in hospital building inspection and certification after a major disaster.
CARES is the only radio communications system that our agencies have with the exception of any communications that may come with the military assistance. While past military radio communications support has been minimal, the State is working with the Air National Guard to strengthen communications capabilities.
RESPONSE STRUCTURE
In California, by law, responsibility for response to disasters resides at the local level (county). Only when a county determines that the disaster exceeds their ability to respond, and asks for assistance from the State, may the State respond. Even in this circumstance, the local agencies are still in charge of the disaster response within their territorial boundary. In any response, the State and Federal governments will be attempting to prepare for requests for assistance from the local agencies, not attempting to develop an "in-charge" response of their own. The State Office of Emergency Services is in charge of coordinating the State response.
To coordinate the disaster assistance, the State response plans call for establishing the following physical response locations:
The State Regional Emergency Operations Center (REOC) - This facility is established at the State OES Regional Office in which the disaster occurs and houses the policy staff of all of the responding agencies. They include representatives from police, fire, transportation, military, health and medical, care and shelter, etc, and are the center for coordination of the State's disaster response effort. Under the recently adopted regional response center concept, the old State Coordination Center (SCC) concept has been replaced by the REOC, and the State Operations Center (SOC) in Sacramento has been reduced in concept to a much smaller policy and public information operation.
The Emergency Medical Services Authority Operations Center (EMSOC) - During the initial hours of a disaster, this center will be located in EMSA Headquarters in Sacramento, and will be the decision center for State medical response. If the disaster proves to be substantial, the staff of the EMSOC will move to the UMOC and direct it's operations.
The Unified Medical Operations Center (UMOC) - This operation is set up at a location separate from the REOC with the Air National Guard. Because of experience in past exercises, it was determined that the logistic center of the medical-health response needed to have its own operating site, away from the crowded and limiting conditions of a general emergency operations center. As soon as the UMOC is operational, all medical and health policy and delivery issues will be decided at the UMOC, and the REOC will become a place of any coordination necessary between the health and medical group and other agencies.
The Joint Emergency Operations Center (JEOC) - This operation will be set up in a State Office Building in Sacramento, and is devoted to gathering medical supplies and personnel for eventual needs in the disaster area, as determined by the UMOC.
In a catastrophic disaster, CARES will support all of the above sites with radio communication. In a less severe situation, or as resources permit in a major event, CARES may be asked to provide communications support to other field installations or response teams. We estimate that in a major disaster, the health and medical radio communications support for major operations centers will require between 75 and 100 Amateur Radio operators. The CARES staff have reached an agreement with Sacramento ARES-RACES to support this level of operation.
Landline digital networks are used extensively by CARES and often directly or indirectly connected to digital radio systems. At present the State has redundant digital networks with links to State facilities in every city; with e-mail, data, and Internet connectivity. Various voice and digital satellite systems are being tested. CARES radio operators are generally very computer network literate, have a variety of State and personal connectivity to data networks, and can establish radio-telephone connectivity to major State and commercial data networks for the communication of disaster messages and information.
CARES members meet regularly and are always interested in new members and new contacts with other medical and health related disaster communicators.
For more information on CARES, please contact:
Bruce Hilliard
CARES Radio Officer
Department of Health Services
601 North 7th. Street, ms 357
Sacramento, CA 94234-7320
E-mail - bhilliar@dhs.ca.gov
Phone - (916) 445-5020