The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) called Army Military Affiliate
Radio System (MARS) into action as tornados swept across the Southeastern United
States February 5-6. According to Army MARS Chief Stuart Carter, "For the
first time as far back as we can remember, a state government called for MARS
deployment in response to an actual emergency. The resulting teamwork and use of
Army MARS Winlink capability gave TEMA its only e-mail link during President
Bush's visit to the storm-stricken area." At least 70 messages were sent
during the state operation ranging from casualty figure updates and signal
reports to staff rosters and photos.
TEMA's Chief of Communications David Wolfe, WA4VVX (MARS call sign AAR4CY),
said, "Although there was no commercial power at the deployment site,
TEMA's communications infrastructure was fully operational. Both the VHF high
band and 800 MHz repeater systems had good coverage for voice command and
control. Our shortage was Internet connectivity, and our unmet needs were e-mail
and the ability to send pictures. MARS Winlink provided exactly what was not
available by any other means."
Carter said that this event illustrates the importance of detailed preparation
and training that has taken place during realistic disaster response exercises
over the past several years. "In the case of Tennessee, the story goes back
a year and a half. Steve Waterman, K4CJX (MARS call sign AAA9AC) began working
with Wolfe in late 2006, preparing for just such a deployment. At the time, Army
MARS was just beginning to adopt the Winlink 2000 radio e-mail network system,
and with the assistance of the then-Tennessee State Director Paul Drothler, WO4U
(MARS call sign AAV4DJ), Army MARS had just signed a Memorandum of Understanding
with TEMA. This MOU just served to strengthen an already strong relationship
between TEMA and Army MARS. Wolfe led TEMA staffers who were already hams to
becoming MARS members and to become qualified MARS Winlink 2000 operators. The
rest of Wolfe's team soon obtained their Amateur Radio and Army MARS
licenses."
The next step, according to Carter, was joint training for TEMA staff and
Tennessee Army MARS members. Some was classroom training followed up with
extensive field training. The culmination of the field training was TNCAT07, a
massive exercise that included the Central United States Earthquake Consortium
(CUSEC), an eight-state alert consortium along the New Madrid fault line. This
exercise also included the participation by ARRL Amateur Emergency Radio Service
(ARES), Civil Air Patrol and other EmComm services that clearly demonstrated
interoperability between TEMA, Tennessee Army MARS, the Amateur Radio community
and other municipal communications services.
"To make a long story short," Carter said, "we now have seen a
demonstration of seamless collaboration between Army MARS and one of our
supported agencies under 'Real World' emergency conditions. This was the first
Army MARS deployment since the Katrina/Rita disasters two years ago.
Successfully meeting the challenge involved deployment readiness on the part of
our members, and it required total Winlink 2000 mobility. First of all came the
building of relationships with existing and potential customers, and then came
meticulous training of state and federal staffers, and frequent exercising at
home and in the field. With this pattern of established collaboration between
our customers and MARS members, we enter the new era of Army MARS Emergency
communications support."
