so ive been a member of my local ARES group for about 8 months now, went through all the ICS training, got my FEMA certs done (100, 200, 700, 800 the whole deal), been showing up to the monthly nets pretty regularly. they just told me last week there's a county-wide emergency exercise coming up next month and i'm on the volunteer list for it.

honestly a little nervous, not gonna lie. its a simulated shelter activation, so we'll be providing comms between the EOC and a couple of the red cross shelter sites. i know the basics of message handling and i've done some traffic on the weekly net but this is different. anyone been through one of these drills and have advice on what to actually bring, what to expect in terms of how organized or disorganized it usually is, stuff like that. my EC said to just bring my go-kit but i feel like i should know more before showing up

these exercises are honestly way less scary than they sound beforehand. the first time i did one i had all this anxiety built up and then we basically spent like 3 hours sitting at a folding table passing written messages and drinking bad coffee. not complaining, it was actually a good experience just saying it wont be like a movie.

bring more than you think you need battery-wise, that's the one thing that always bites people. and a clipboard and real pencils not just a pen because pens die at the worst times. if your go-kit has a decent HT and a mag mount or a portable j-pole you're probably fine for a shelter site. the EOC end usually has the more serious gear setup. just listen more than you talk at first, especially if theres a net control already running things, and you'll pick it up fast. the experienced guys are almost always happy to walk newer folks through stuff, at least in every group ive been part of

yeah what he said about the batteries is real. i forgot to charge my spare pack before one drill and was sweating it by hour two lol. also just a heads up, depending on how your county runs things the exercise might feel kind of stop-and-go with injected scenarios being read out by an evaluator and then you respond, so don't be thrown off if it feels weirdly scripted. thats normal for these tabletop-style things. the point is really just to shake out the kinks in the communication plan more than anything else. you'll do fine