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The Three “P”s of Volunteer Service
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Preparedness
- Ensure your family is protected. You can not help others as an volunteer if your family is not safe and secure. This requires a formal Family Disaster Plan that is reviewed regularly. For assistance in preparing a disaster plan read “Together We Prepare” at http://www.redcross.org.
- Maintain a Family Disaster Supply Kit with a minimum of three days food. This is not,” I probably have enough stuff in my cupboard”, but food and other essentials dated and stored in a water proof container for immediate evacuation. At the very least, having such a kit prevents you from having to fight shopping lines when others panic.
- Keep a minimum of a half a tank of fuel in all vehicles.
- Review your county emergency plans, including your county alert notification procedures.
- Have appropriate equipment, interchangeable emergency power sources, spare batteries, and generators tested. Keep a portable radio in your briefcase or purse during heightened alerts.
Proficiency
- Know how government and agencies respond to disasters.
- Know how volunteers supplement them.
- Know what to do and what not to do.
- Maintain skills by participating in exercises and training sessions.
- Become certified, enroll in and complete FEMA and in house courses.
Professionalism
- Attitude - Positive, helping not hindering.
- Reliability - Arriving on time, keeping appointments.
- Flexibility - Doing what is needed to complete assignments.
- Thinking - Think before speaking, especially concerning government and military operations.
- Appearance - Dress business casual, be professional at all times when representing your organization,
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The Four “S”s of Volunteer Service
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Sensibility
- First of all, its important to remain calm and think before acting and speaking.
- Although the threat of terrorist attack on US interests somewhere in the world exists, the chance of something significant actually happening in your area is much, much less. While you need to be prepared, the chances of having to be used in response to a local emergency remain small.
- When we are elevated to Orange threat status, it does not mandate continuous manning of emergency circuits. Homeland Security currently indicates that elevation to threat status Red is unlikely and if it ever did occur, it would most likely be for a very limited area. If an EOC is opened for actual post-incident relief operations and communications become overloaded, then volunteers would need to consider manning such facilities in accordance with local plans.
- Once again, as a volunteer your primary concern at this time is making sure your home and family are prepared for an emergency.
Safety
- Safety of yourself in any operation should be paramount. If you are dead or injured, you obviously can not be of any help to anyone, and will only compound the problem for those we are trying to help.
- Make sure that any task undertaken is one that you are trained and equipped to handle. As an emergency support volunteer, you are trained for a specific task. Most of us are not trained nor equipped to fight fires, engage in heavy rescue, monitor chemical plumes, or similar hazardous activities. Trying to do things we are not trained nor equipped for only compounds the problem.
- Remember in times of stress to be careful of the normal risks, such as driving safely. Nothing we do as volunteers ever requires us to violate any speed limits or traffic signals.
- Fatigue is a major problem. If activated, make sure you work no more than eight hours a day and get plenty of sleep when off duty. In all operations, our leadership will make sure that adequate shifts and relief personnel are scheduled to minimize fatigue and maximize safety and effectiveness.
Security
- Every time you talk to someone on the air even in normal conversation, assume at least ten other people are listening, some of who might wish us harm. So without being paranoid, be careful about on air conversations that might be of value to enemies.
- This includes on the air discussions of military operations, government security procedures, police checkpoint locations, repeater and communication facility locations, EOC locations, Red Cross locations, emergency frequencies, schedules of operations, etc. When in-person, you have a good idea to whom you are talking to, on the air you do not know who is listening and every bit of information could become part of an overall capability assessment.
- So while we doubt that amateur radio is high on any enemy's list of priority targets, and it is true that much of this information can be found from other public sources, we obviously do not want to become an additional or confirming source of information ourselves.
Sensitivity
- Never express personal opinions. Expressions of personal feelings are not appropriate during any deployment.
Be calm, ready and hope that we are never called to serve.
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