The Westchester County Amateur Radio Emergency Service/Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (ARES/RACES) group of volunteer Amateur Radio operators participated in the annual nationwide American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Simulated Emergency Test (SET) during the weekend of October 4-5, 1997. The SET drill locally tested a portion of the amateur radio (RACES) component of a recently-completed City of Rye hurricane evacuation plan.
The weekend's activities included a triage drill at the United Hospital Medical Center in Port Chester, NY which is designated as the shelter for evacuees with special medical needs. Fourteen radio operators participated in the field in the local drill. 43 participated overall in the group call-up and section-wide communications activity.
An Eastern New York Section-wide SET drill was also underway for the entire weekend, involving communications throughout this 15-county region--from the southern counties of Westchester and Rockland to the northern counties of Washington and Warren--as was the nationwide SET involving drills throughout the nation.
While this report makes some reference to the drill at United Hospital Medical Center, no attempt is made to describe that drill here; it was a related activity organized and conducted by United Hospital's Director of Emergency Services, Robert Leviton, MD, MPH. The focus of this report is on the Amateur Radio communications activities.
Figure 1: ARRL Hudson Division consisting of the Eastern New York (ENY),
Northern New Jersey (NNJ), and New York City-Long Island (NLI) Sections.