AAR for Missing Person Response May 2nd 2010

Responders:

KCØQLU Trevor Black
KCØYEJ Brian Lusk
NJØZ George Pease
KCØZYX Bernie Cassidy
NØSWP Steve Polley
KCØIMF Toby McMullen
(3 other members responded for their Public Safety entities.)

I received a call from the Clinton County EMD Blair Shock at approx. 2200 Sunday May 2nd 2010. The request was for manpower to attempt to locate a missing person south of Cameron, MO. Public safety and local Fire Departments had been searching since 7pm. We were requested to meet at the Elk’s Lodge 2 miles south of Cameron on 69 HWY were we would get our assignment. I began calling members of the group that had training in Search and Rescue. I also made an announcement on the local repeater for anyone that was able to respond. KCØQLU, KCYEJ, NJØZ, KCØZYX, NØSWP, KCØIMF were able to respond. I sent an email to the SEC and ASEC to inform them of our call out request. Upon arriving at the staging area (2245) we were put in standby until IC gave us an assignment. All members checked in with the Staging manager. At 2330 all volunteers were told to report to the IC for a search assignment for an area from 326th street to the Fireworks stand at I-35. After about 25 min. all volunteers were instructed to go back to staging area and await orders. We arrived back at staging area at 0012 hours and were informed there would be a de-briefing shortly. 0023 all search personnel were informed that the missing person had been recovered. Everyone was thanked for responding and dismissed at 0025.

Total Manpower hours:

7 x 2.5 = 17.5 hours

All in all the response went very well. I was very encouraged with the response especially given the time of day and there were storms in the area that would have made things difficult. The storms stayed to the north of our location.Steve Polley, NØSWP gave weather updates for the first 30 minutes of the event Everyone that responded brought water, flashlights, and rain gear and hand held radios. We ran a very relaxed net on the Osborn repeater as we were all within simplex range. There were only minor issues with signals to the repeater. The location of the staging area was in a low area that caused some repeats but not enough to hamper communications.

Lessons learned:I don’t have everyone’s number in my phone. We have just updated our website so contact info is not complete. We will fix this at our next meeting May 8th. Need to have someone outside the event to run net and keep track of people.

I was very happy with the response and professionalism that our group showed. Each one was there to help in anyway they could and would do it again when called upon.

Trevor Black
KC0QLU
NWMO ARES Group