At 10:17 a.m. on October 17, 2019, thousands of people will participate in the Great Colorado ShakeOut, the state’s largest earthquake drill ever! We’ll join participants from across the country to prepare for earthquake response and recovery. As part of ARES, it’s important that we know how to launch a communication response to assist local, state and federal officials as they mobilize for damage control. In Mesa County, all ARES members should monitor the Western Colorado Amateur Radio Club’s W0RRZ repeater at 146.94 MHz (107.2 tone) for information on how to respond. The only catch? No public AC power! The first thing to go in an earthquake is public power, so please respond with battery, generator or solar power only. Even a handheld will work, so we should all be able to respond.
The Great Colorado ShakeOut is part of the Great ShakeOut, a national and international initiative to help teach citizens how to survive and recover from an earthquake. More information is available at www.shakeout.org. As of October 6th, 17.8 million people are registered to participate in the U.S. and 19.4 million worldwide.
This will be a brief drill – I would just like to see how many ARES members can respond. We’ll also be working with Mesa County RACES, which will be monitoring the GMRA repeaters to assist with a government response, so try to monitor both bands if you’re also a RACES member. We’re fortunate in Mesa County to be relatively disaster-free, so this is a good opportunity to brush up on our emergency communication readiness skills, and this meets the requirements for an ARES drill to enter into your ARES Task Book for required exercises.
Listen for more details on the RACES/EmComm net on Wednesday on GMRA.
Thanks for your participation!
Great Colorado ShakeOut Statewide Earthquake Drill – Flyer
Chip Ferron, N0WKR
Mesa County ARES Emergency Coordinator