Red Cross EmComm Drill Summary
American Red Cross volunteer radio amateurs organized a large-scale nationwide Emergency
Communications (EmComm) drill on May 30, 2020.

Planning began last November by a handful of Red Cross volunteers. Interest both within
Red Cross and the larger radio amateur community grew and by May a thousand.hams were
registered to participate.

Red Cross has a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Radio Relay League concerning
EmComm training and exercises and this drill was organized along those lines. ARRL's Amateur Radio
Emergency Service (ARES) provided hundreds of hams to support Red Cross in this simulated nationwide
emergency.

In all, over a thousand radio amateurs were active in thirty six states, including Hawaii and
Alaska, as well as the territory of Puerto Rico.
Additionally, the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN), with its strong history of
providing EmComm services participated in this joint simulation. SATERN activated in six states.

The Drill was a simulated nationwide power outage and participating hams were role-playing as "shelter
stations." (No one was actually at a Red Cross shelter due to the complications of Covid-19.) In future
drills actual operation at Red Cross shelters and facilities will be planned.

The drill scenario was that each "shelter station" ham was in an area that had no power, internet or
cell phone service and that the Shelter Manager needed to get out a requisition for materiel.
The Shelter Manager would give the ham a 6409 requisition form that would then be transmitted
digitally, over radio, to a Divisional Clearinghouse.
There were ten of these Divisional Clearinghouses set up around the nation to serve as collection
points for 6409's and other Red Cross forms.
The Divisional Clearinghouses were assumed to be "high and dry," with power and fully-functional internet.
They would be able to collect the forms and convert these into plain-English documents to send to a
conventional Red Cross email address and readable by a non-ham.

This event was a booming success.
Over six hundred 6409's were sent, along with three hundred ARC 213's and almost a hundred shelter
reports and staff assignment forms, demonstrating the ability of amateur radio to process and deliver
Red Cross forms in an emergency scenario with no internet, power or cell phone services.
Cooperation between ARES and Red Cross was strengthened more than ever.

Planning is now beginning for a Fall Drill that will build upon lessons learned in the Spring Drill.

--Comments prepared by Wayne Robertson, K4WK
[email protected]
June 22, 2020