We had 19 Lost Children today…

 

Today was a very different sort of day…. Long periods of little to do… followed by a few intense highs… but more on that later…

 

My day began when Chris KU6A woke me up to ask for directions… As I had fallen asleep on my keyboard last nite (I guess I could not do 3 days without sleep)… I asked him what time it was… and why he was calling me …. He told me it was 6:30AM when we were supposed to be on base…….which woke me up and I immediately jumped in the truck as I had the only keys to the RV and I was supposed to be there at 6:30… Needless to say … everything worked out… and I was there about 7 ish…

 

Pat WA6MHZ produced these incredibly tasty Breakfast Jacks… Ham and Eggs on a bun.. and fed everyone…The Marines, the Lost and Found Ladies and of course our responders…Pat is a really good cook…. Our BBQ’s continue to be a hit……  Our food looked, smelled and tasted very good  …People around us seem to really appreciate our efforts and donations should cover much of the costs…

We had our usual AM briefing… and then starting rotating net controls and scribes so that everyone could get practice and learn the different positions…

 

One thing that is not working well is our Staff Accountability Form… which effectively causes our Scribes to duplicate information… RACES and CERT use Accountability Cards… .and a White Board so that Net Control can see who is doing what and where…We need to look at adopting something similar to RACES….to keep track of our responders when they are in the field.  One thing that worked very well is when we started roll calling our Search Teams was to get each team to detail their current grid locations…

 

The Highlight of the Day…  We had a lost 25 year old with Downs Syndrome with 2 children (5 & 8)… We had a Kathy Madsen KF6DGA was Tactical Net Control… It was her first time participating as an ARES Responder…Using the staff accountability logs, Kathy was able to vector the search teams to the suspect area… This was an exceptionally difficult search…two children accompanied by an adult do not look lost … even though the severely disabled Downs Syndrome man was not actually able to supervise them…  Dan Musick KG6VVN was able to recognize the Downs Syndrome and found them… it was really cute to see Dan and Mitch K6BK herding them back  to lost and found…what was truly amazing was the round of applause that Dan and Mitch received from the Marines and the Lost and Found Ladies….  This was what it was all about …. And everyone was feeling very charged up by the successful conclusion of this potentially dangerous situation…

 

The Humor of the day.. Was the 4 year old who managed to get lost twice……

 

The ID Vests continue to be very effective… Mike Green W6MTG and Karen Green Ki6AKV were approached by a women for protection in a domestic violence situation.. Mike’s radio and Vest intimidated the perpetrator long enough for Marine MP’s to arrive to help….

 

Breakdown… we are moving so slowly through crowds on patrols that the cart battery ran down….and the boys had to push it back to the chargers…

 

Jim W6SST – who is a much better photographer showed up

 

And finally….the photo shoot of Day 2 is at