SKYWARN

The RI ARES Situational Awareness Mission & Economic Value

Ground truth “situational awareness” reports from your neighborhood matter. Here’s a great example Gil Woodside, RICOMU leadership shared during my 2024 Field Day visit to ARRL-Affiliated Club, WA1USA. [Recording transcript lightly edited for clarity.]

Nancy Austin, KC1NEK, ARRL RI Section Manager: Hello Gil, WA1LAD – Great to meet you during Field Day today at WA1USA. You were just sharing an example of how the situational awareness capabilities of every ham delivering, for example, weather reports really matters. So could you tell that anecdote again that you just shared with me?

Gil Woodside, WA1LAD, RICOMU:  

Sure! This January 2024 Rhode Island had damaging rainstorms. The state had gone to FEMA and said that we were going to go through the process of getting a disaster declaration, which will bring Federal money in for Recovery. The issue was that FEMA said the storm was actually multiple storms over multiple days. But we worked with the National Weather Service and their forecasting office. And we gathered all the reports from the local hams and Skywarn spotters, and we took all that information to the Weather Service. They got all this data;  they collated it all and they were able to show FEMA that it was a single weather event. Not multiple events over multiple days. And that information alone allowed us to complete the paperwork with FEMA and successfully get a disaster declaration for our state for the January storms. …

This mattered! For example, Galilee had significant damage down there to the beaches, buildings, etc. and they were looking at about $12 million dollars for that area. And so, that’s a really good example of how any ham could really have an impact. Getting involved in Skywarn, as one example, can really matter. 

Whether you are a trained Skywarn Spotter or not, you can say that, you know, my street has a foot of water on it. It’s those types of reports that they look at at the National Weather Service. Their radar and their forecasting is essential, but we still need real world boots on the ground, in the street, reporting from everybody. It REALLY MATTERS. We take situational awareness reports from hams, from Public Safety and other other professionals … cities, towns, DPW’s, RIPTA, RIDOT. So, we are constantly gathering this information to make informed decisions. It also helps us get disaster declarations – such as shared in the example here. Federal money provides funding to get things done. … 

Thanks so much for visiting WA1USA on ARRL Field Day 2024. We look forward to continuing to serve Rhode Island and working with the amateur radio community in shared support of our situational awareness mission. 

Are you a licensed RI Ham interested to learn more and make a difference?

Please join the RI-ARES monthly Zoom meeting tomorrow, Wednesday July 10, 2024 from 8-9:30 pm as we set priorities for the year ahead. RIARES.org  [calendar]

Check-in to the RI-ARES monthly 2m SIMPLEX net tonight as we test a shorter net format based on the Western MA (WMA) weekly Sunday morning 80m EmComm net. 

Going forward, the RI monthly Simplex net is likely going to call for basic check-in reports from key stakeholder partners – including ARRL and ARES leadership, Public Safety, Skywarn, NTS, RI County involved stations, outside RI, and Relays. It will help build awareness of stakeholders and call signs, and help highlight gaps we need to address. (Are you the next NTS lead for RI?)

2m FM Simplex Net 7:30PM @147.42 MHz

(Monthly, 2nd Tues, KC1NEK NCS)

147.42 MHz Simplex

TONIGHT: 19:30 Local Time – Tues July 9, 2024 

Please be prepared to check-in when called with this report template:

• Call Sign, Name, Location, 
• Power Source (commercial/battery), Power Level (ie. 50 watts)
• Traffic or Issues to report in your area? (Negative? Something to report?).
• Over
• NOTE: We will not have a later round of comments on this test Simplex net format. You can choose to make a note of which stations you can hear and how well. A future goal would be to later collect and collate this via a follow-up Google Doc. Share your suggestions tomorrow during the RI-ARES Monthly Zoom call.