so we finally got our county ARES group to do a full scale exercise last saturday. scenario was a major river flooding that took out the main EOC and we had to stand up a backup site about 3 miles away using only portable equipment. i've been pushing for this for about two years so i was pretty invested in how it went.

short version: it did not go as smoothly as i expected and honestly that was kind of the point but some of the problems were ones we really should have caught earlier. the biggest issue was nobody had actually tested the go-kits in probably 18 months and two of the five HF rigs had dead internal batteries and one antenna tuner just flat out wouldnt initialize. we had plenty of radios but the paperwork — the ICS forms, the message templates — none of that was current and a couple of the newer members had never even seen a ICS-213 before in a real context.

also and this is something i keep thinking about: we had great RF coverage but zero plan for how to hand off messages between the backup EOC and the hospital liaison. like we could talk to everyone but there was no actual information flow structure. net control was kind of just winging it.

anyone else done drills like this and found stuff that surprised you? curious what other groups are doing to actually stress-test their procedures not just their equipment

yeah this sounds really familiar honestly. we did a similar exercise about three years ago and the antenna and battery stuff is always what gets people. everyone assumes someone else tested the gear. after our drill we put a literal calendar reminder every six months just to power up every go-kit radio and run through a quick checklist. not fancy, just somebody actually does it and signs off on a log sheet.

the ICS forms thing is a real gap in a lot of groups i think. knowing how to operate the radio is one thing but the whole point in an actual event is moving information to the right people in the right format. we started doing tabletop exercises separate from the RF exercises, like just sit around a table and practice filling out 213s and 214s for a fake scenario. it sounds boring but it really helped our newer folks get comfortable with the paperwork side before we ever fired up a radio.

the message flow structure problem you mentioned is the hardest one to solve. in our experience the only fix is actually writing down who talks to who and about what before the event not during it. we have a simple one page comm plan now that spells out exactly which station is responsible for each served agency link and what the escalation path is if that station goes down. took a few drafts to get right but its been worth it

this is really interesting to read as someone who just got their general and has been thinking about getting involved with ARES. i didnt realize how much of it was the paperwork and logistics side vs just like, operating the radio. kind of makes me want to go sit in on one of these drills before i actually try to help at one so i know what im getting into