so i finally got activated for real last weekend, not just a drill. county emergency management called us in because of the flooding over on the east side of the county and they needed some extra comms support at the shelter they set up at the high school. ive been in ARES for about 8 months now and done maybe 3 or 4 SET exercises but nothing real, and i have to say it felt completely different than i expected.

the drills always felt a little fake to me, like everyone kind of knew it wasnt real so the urgency wasnt there. but when you're actually at a shelter at 11pm with 200 displaced people around and the EOC is asking for resource status updates every 30 minutes it clicks in a way it just doesnt during practice. my net control was K8 something, older guy, really calm and kept everything moving. i was on HF backup mostly just monitoring but also relaying a few messages when their repeater was getting flaky.

anyway my main takeaway is if you're in ARES and you haven't gone through ICS training yet, do it. the EOC people were using ICS terminology constantly and a couple of our guys were a little lost. i took the IS-100 and IS-700 online before joining and it made such a difference just being able to understand what was being asked of us. also bring food and water for yourself, don't assume they'll have stuff at the shelter for volunteers, we were there 9 hours and i only had a granola bar i found in my go bag.

yeah the real activations are a whole different animal, you nailed it. i remember my first one was a winter storm back in 2019 and i was completely unprepared mentally even though i thought i wasnt. the ICS stuff is so important and honestly most new ARES members underestimate it. some people join thinking its all about the radio stuff but half the job is just knowing how to fit into an incident command structure without being in the way.

glad it went well for you. and seriously the go bag thing - i tell everyone in our local group to pack like you're going to be there 12 hours minimum with zero support. snacks, a phone charger, maybe a small folding chair if you're doing a fixed post, layers of clothing. sounds like overkill until its not.

this is really good to hear, im working on getting into my county's ARES group right now and stuff like this is helpful. i didnt know about the ICS courses being that important, i'll look those up. are those the fema ones online? i think i saw something about that on the arrl site but wasnt sure if they were required or just recommended