ARES: The Case of "Well yes, but actually, no"

 Ah yes, ARES, the poster child of over exaggeration. Every book I remember reading when I was studying for my license made it seem as if signing up for this program would make me feel like a real first responder, ready to save lives and be a hero with a $20 walkie talkie and a hard hat. Years later though, I realize that is not the case by a long shot. And even now, many people I meet interested in EmComm have some ideas that sound more like they want to be cops, minus the badge and the gun.

    Without a doubt, ARES has it's place. It always will, but it's a very specific place that most volunteers will never reach. ARES and Ham Radio have always been "the backup to the backup". However, I am a firm believer that if you understand the place that ARES holds, and the role that you as a volunteer would likely hold during an emergency, it makes for much more reasonable expectations of what you will give, and what you will get as a volunteer.

    In my opinion, the world of EmComm to a newcomer paints a picture of being side by side with highly trained and specialized first responders during a disaster or emergency. I hate to break it to you, but the likeliness of that is extremely slim. I've heard people in club meetings discuss and fantasize about in an emergency, what kind of role they would play, what would they be doing, and how they would be saving the day. Again, probably not going to happen.

    As a previous EC, let's use what I would do based on the agencies I served, and what resources I had available, and make up a scenario. Let's say a very large flood was affecting a town of about 40,000 people. And I got the call that says "We need ARES to help". Here's what would happen: My volunteers would be staging as soon as they heard the news of the event, and would be on standby mode, ready with go kits and supplies. It's likely that we would be asked to staff shelters around the town, and provide communications. Now, right off the bat, we have already broke one of the stigmas. We are not getting called to go do search and rescue somewhere, or go door to door to check for those who didn't evacuate. Why? Because there are trained agencies to handle that. We specialize in communications, not search and rescue. We aren't going to the Police, or the Fire Department, or some government agency to handle their comms because their system failed. Why? Because they have redundancies that they have brought in so their systems stay active. Does that mean our role is any less important? Absolutely not.

    Following this scenario, we would begin deploying to these shelters, and begin setting up portable VHF/UHF stations, utilizing the area repeater if it is still online. At these shelters, we may be asked by civil agencies, like Red Cross, or Salvation Army, or whomever, to help facilitate supply orders, possibly act as a health/welfare system and check people in, maybe helping families locate their separated loved ones. Cell systems would likely be extremely overloaded, especially if power is lost to different sites around town. And thousands who may have not been in the evacuation zone, but do not have power, or safe drinking water, may come to the shelters. Net control stations or ARES leadership may set up a HF link to the state level EMA to help relay these messages, or even other ARES teams in the area that have cellular/internet access. ARES volunteers may be asked to do other things besides working a radio as well. They may run a check in counter, help prepare food and supplies, the list goes on and on.

    That is what ARES is for. Government agencies have redundancy after redundancy for their communications. Unless communications over a very long distance are needed, it's likely we won't be working comms for them. We will be assisting the civilian sector most likely. In my area, the only recent event I know ARES assisted a government agency with was going around and collecting flood reports after a large storm for the county EMA office. And that's absolutely fine by me. Sure, we will train for many different scenarios, as anything is possible during an unpredictable emergency. Those scenarios may include providing communications, say, for a 911 outage, or for interop with a government agency/first responders. However, I fully believe that as an ARES volunteer, you shouldn't be "lowering" your expectations, but rather, maybe align your expectations with what is likely. No matter what ARES is called out for, it will be a role that we can take off of the public sector, so they can focus on what they are trained to do.

    Now, this is not the case everywhere. There might be some ARES teams out there that are handling those "first responder" type duties. At least everywhere I've been, that isn't how it happens. But whatever you do, don't forget that you are still a highly trained individual in the communications world, and no matter what, your role is important.