Santa Clara County, California
ARES/RACES

PROCEDURE FOR REPORTING DAMAGES AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE
 by Larry Carr, KE6AGJ
Chief Radio Officer, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service
Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services

MILD EARTHQUAKE

In the event of a mild earthquake we need to hear from hams in all the cities in the county. If you are affected by a mild earthquake in the future (if it catches your attention, even if only in a minor way), please tune your radio to 146.115(+)PL 100.0/R, 145.27(-)PL 100.0/R, or 440.1(+)PL 100.0/R to see if any others are reporting affects of the earthquake.   Net control operators, please be sure to link the repeaters as soon as possible, so that a county-wide as well as a region-wide assessment can be made effectively.

If you do not hear any traffic on the repeater:

  • Announce your call sign
  • State that you experienced what you think was an earthquake
  • Ask if others on the repeater did also.
You may then decide to be net control, or you can ask one of the others on the net if they would be willing to do so.   Net control should then start recording call signs and short summaries of reports (be sure to include the part of the city from which the ham is calling - e.g. "AB6DEF, no damage, downtown Palo Alto").  
  • First, ask for reports of injuries, serious or moderate damage;
  • If none, then ask for reports of NO damage - this will also be of value when we try to determine the areas most affected by the earthquake.

When a county ARES representative comes on the air, give that person the information that you have gathered (if no county representatives announces themselves, please page me at 650-240-2871 - I might not have felt the earthquake either!) . The county ARES representative will usually become net control. One of the first tasks will be to conduct a poll of all the cities in the county to determine extent of damage in each city. If you hear your city called, and no one responds, please announce your call sign, even if only to report no damage. This way, we can be sure that all cities have been contacted at least in an informal way. If cities are performing an in-city damage assessment net, they should be sure to have one of their hams monitoring the ARES/RACES repeater to let the net control know that information is to be coming from that city. The net should be maintained until all cities have been contacted; the net control should poll all the cities before closing the net. (Note to county ARES personnel - if a city does not respond, either by individual hams, or collectively after a city-wide net, then call the EC for that city by telephone. If no answer, call the fire department in that city by telephone to determine the damages (if any) that the city experienced.)

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE

If there is a major earthquake, everyone will know that it has occurred. Under these circumstances, please limit your reports to situations where injury or major damage has occurred. If you happen to be the net control, you should ask for, in this order:
  • Injury reports
  • Damage that could possibly cause injuries
  • Minor damage reports
  • No Damage reports
Please wait for these specific requests before reporting.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

When you have a report to make to Net Control, state your call sign, your name, and your location, and then wait for the Net Control to acknowledge.   Proceded with your report when Net Control tells you to go ahead.

Larry Carr, KE6AGJ
Chief Radio Officer, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service
Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services
District Emergency Coordinator, Amateur Radio Emergency Service, Santa Clara County
Auxiliary Communications Service Coordinator, Santa Clara County Operational Area

e-mail: lcarr @ mail.arc.nasa.gov or lwcarr10 @ pacbell.net

This page was last updated 5/15/02

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