ARES Mutual Aid Doesn't Require Official Sanction
David Coursey, N5FDL Wed, April 8, 2009 at 10:28PM I am writing about this outside of the Sandra Cantu debriefing because I want to make sure people see it and understand the point:
ARES is not RACES/ACS and we are not bound by their policies and procedures.
Yes, some ARES groups are also the RACES/ACS groups in their communities. We are working to do that in my town as I write this. That will happen through creation and approcal of an ACS plan. Our ARES group, however, will remain.
Most of the time, we will respond as a joint ARES/RACES/ACS group. BUT, we can also respond as an ARES group only. It is important that ARES leaders make their served agencies understand that while the agencies can “own” their ACS/RACES group, that ARES is always independent.
This is something that we also need to understand ourselves.
During the callout for amateurs to support the Sandra Cantu search, I discussed with a ham in another county the idea of having hams from that group come help us. His response was that they’d be happy to, but the request needed to be routed through his county’s Office of Emergency Services. I didn’t need help that badly, so I let it drop. I had better things to do than deal with the issue at the time.
As ARES members, we work as ARRL volunteers and can do anything we feel like doing. Once I am activated, I can ask for whatever resources I need from other ARES groups. They can respond (or not) without consulting anyone. The request can go entirely through ARES channels. One EC/DEC/SEC can talk to another (or follow some established ARES mutual-aid plan) and that should be enough.
In a RACES or ACS organization, there are formal mutual-aid policies and procedures. I have no problem with that, but it shouldn’t get in the way of ARES members responding as they see fit in support of other ARES groups.
Amateur Radio’s emergency response can be a very flexible and wonderful thing. Why screw it up?
