TO: ALL WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
ALL NON-WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
FROM: KEN HARRIS WA8LLM
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS INCORPORATED
WV ARES BULLETIN NR 09.49 DATE: December 6, 2009
SUBJECT: THE NEED FOR REGISTRATION
For every Public Safety function, problem, or event, there is a Government agency charged with the primary response, control, and mitigation.
Some agencies use volunteers on a regular basis, and others do not. Such regular, or professional, volunteers are generally expected to meet certain qualifications prior to acceptance and enrollment.
Some skilled volunteers, properly trained and registered, are an important part of, and support, a specific Public agency. Public agencies do not take kindly to unregistered volunteers showing up at an emergency.
By the same token, properly registered volunteers should not respond to an incident on their own. They should wait and be asked to respond by authorization from a competent authority.
One of the prerequisites in West Virginia for a volunteer to serve a Public agency is to first become a registered Emergency Services Worker in accordance with West Virginia Code: Chapter 15, Article 5.
To be a good volunteer it helps to be familiar with the procedures of an agency you will be working with. As communicators one way to get familiar is to take the National Incident Management System (NIMS) courses. No set rules have been established for communications yet, but a good start is the NIMS IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800, or their lasted issue.
Ken Harris WA8LLM
Wood County WV
WV ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
WV ARES District 3 Emergency Coordinator