CALDWELL COUNTY, MISSOURI

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES)

On 9-11-2012, the Health Department, Caldwell County, Missouri, had their first annual Drive-Thru Flu Clinic in Polo, Missouri, at the Stagecoach Park. They provided breakfast, snacks and lunch, for the volunteers, in the Community Center at the park.

Neelie Churchill, MPH, Environmental Public Health Specialist, Public Health Preparedness Planner, asked our Caldwell County ARES Group to provide communications and traffic control for this incident. We were able to schedule 6 ARES operators to participate. They were; Trevor Black, District Emergency Coordinator (DEC), KC0QLU; George Pease, Assistant DEC, KC0GP; Mike Council, Grundy County Emergency Coordinator (EC), WU0G; Bob Pugh, Caldwell County EC, KG0CX; Larry Heisey, K0MET; and Jack Smith, KA0UTD. I would like to give a big Thank You to all the HAM radio operators who participated, THANK YOU!

The incident began at 7:00 am with the set-up of our equipment. Breakfast was served at 8:00 am and a meeting was started at about 8:30 am to prepare all the workers and volunteers for what needed to be done to carry out the objective, dispensing injections of the flu vaccine. The injections were given from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and there were 69 drive-thru injections given. After picking up and packing our equipment, we left the incident sight at 3:30 pm.
We had a control station, with an awning for shade, with the control operator positioned near the fourth Health Department tent, where the injections were dispensed. The Control Frequency we used for this incident was 146.550 MHz, simplex. We had two mobile operators with hand-held radios, one with Neelie on a four wheeler, so she could be contacted as needed by a relay from Amateur Radio. The other mobile operator was riding a golf cart so he could run errands as necessary. The other four ARES operators used hand-held radios at fixed locations to relay tactical messages and help direct traffic as needed.

According to the ARRL form FSD-57: “Public Service Activity Report”, we provided 42 ¾ total person hours; the estimated person hour value at $19.00 per hour is $812.25; the estimated value of our equipment used is $2500.00 and therefore, the total estimated value of our ARES voluntary service for this incident is $3312.25. We are proud to serve as volunteers, and this paragraph was inserted here to show our served agencies an estimate of what our service could be worth.

The driveway through the park was very well suited for the traffic. It was about a mile long and looped back past an information tent, after the injection receivers, received paper work and filled it out at a tent near the turn-around point. The cooperation between the served agency, the Sheriffs Department, the volunteers, including the ARES personnel, the food volunteers, and the injection recipients, was amazing.

This incident was one of the best I have participated in throughout my many years in Amateur Radio. Thanks, again, to all who were involved!