The following information is provided to amateur radio operators who are encouraged to volunteer with either their local Municipal or Provincial Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs). These EOCs are government organizations and are not part of the West Coast Amateur Radio Association, which is designated as a British Columbia Charitable organization.
Why volunteer with an Emergency Operations Center?
Volunteering with an EOC enables an amateur radio operator to gain new communication skills and experience. It improves community resilience in an emergency or disaster when internet and telephone services may be out of service. Many of these organizations are short handed and would greatly appreciate more volunteers.
Municipal Emergency Operations Centers
Most of the municipal EOCs are located in a community firehall. Volunteers throughout the region travel to their nearby EOC and operate a directed voice net each Wednesday at 19:30. It happens shortly after the WARA Emergency Communications Team network on Wednesdays at 19:00 (more information: https://www.ve7vic.ca/ect-and-wara-nets/).
The more volunteers a municipal EOC has on rotation, the easier the scheduling and the more amateur radio operators who can participate in shifts for long duration emergencies.
The website of the Capital Region Emergency Radio Coordinators Committee (CRERCC): https://sites.google.com/site/crerccbc/home?authuser=0 lists the schedules and frequencies used in the Greater Victoria region.
Provincial Emergency Operations Centers (PREOC)
The South Coast PREOC Extension site is located at 200 Block A, 2261 Keating Cross Road.
Map to South Coast PREOC Extension site.
The BC Emergency Management System is a comprehensive management system based upon the Incident Command System that ensures a coordinated and organized response and recovery to all emergency incidents and disasters.
A PREOC coordinates, facilitates and manages information, policy direction, and provincial resources to support local authorities and provincial agencies responding to an emergency or disaster. In an event, the Emergency Program staff at an EOC may need to communicate with provincial staff if they require provincial assistance.
The South Coast PREOC Extension/PECC radio room provides emergency communications for the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR). The radio room’s mandate is to provide radio communications between local authority EOC staff and provincial emergency management staff when regular communication paths fail.
VE7POC Portable emergency radio system
The provincial radio room has 16 radios with most of those being commercial single band Motorola CMD1550 VHF or UHF radios with both amateur (voice and packet) and commercial (voice) frequencies in them. On Wednesday evenings, the radio room runs up to three voice nets (one HF and two VHF) and communicates with up to 24 EOC radio rooms in the South Coast PREOC Extension Region. On the 4th Wednesday of each month we have a dress rehearsal where in addition to testing the equipment we test our procedures and checklists (fight like you train, train like you fight).
Our volunteers also have access to the Justice Institute of British Columbia’s Emergency Management courses.
General Provincial level emergency management information is available at: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-management/emergency-management
To request further information or to volunteer to participate in a municipal or provincial EOC, contact: https://www.ve7vic.ca/ect-contact/