Disaster Communications

Saturday morning as Ginny and I gathered stuff for our CERT emergency radio communications training class, she muttered something about wanting some political papers related to the upcoming elections.

Being an ever-alert husband, I began loudly singing:

I’ll seek no more the fine and gay
For each does but remind me
How swift the hours did pass away
With the girl I left behind me.

After a good many verses of that song, I broke into singing all the words I could remember to “Hard-Hearted Barbara Allen”.

“What in the world are you doing?” Ginny asked.

I told her I was singing a simple ballad for her.

That’s when she gave me That Look.

All long-married men know the look I mean.

The All-Men-Are-Idiots-And-I’ve-Married-Their-King look.

At the disaster radio class we practiced stuff about channels and sub-channels and tones and radio protocol as each team walked all over downtown Jacksonville.

We learned that some area CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) groups form equestrian units or 4-wheel-drive units so they can reach areas inaccessible except by horse or ATVs. This type of unit can get to an airliner which crashed in a swamp or to a wile fire.

The Jax fire department even has some bike-mounted firemen who can respond in emergencies at sports events because they can get through dense crowds where as a regular fire/rescue truck would have trouble maneuvering through a crowd.

During the radio drill, both Ginny and I got to push a button and talk with Team Leader who relayed our important information to Base Net at the Emergency Operations Center.

All we were doing was counting parked cars around City Hall in this drill, but we did learn the benefits and limitations of this radio system. We’d never even seen this kind of radio before. It was cool.

Communications is so important in disasters—such as marriage.

For instance, earlier that morning Ginny had not yearned to hear me sing a simple ballad—she’d said she was looking for her sample ballot.