Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

Looking outside the box

Recently, I ran into a new friend down at Staples here in town. He is recently retired Police sergeant Dean Sawyer. Retirement being not being what he thought it was he looked for a part time job and found it with the tribal council in Siletz. He is their emergency coordinator now. We talked about the FRS radios that go on sale periodically for around $15 a pair and then he went on to tell me something that got my brain whirling...

In the office building at Siletz everyone has an FRS radio at their desk. In case of emergency they pick it up and turn it on. Instantly, everyone is connected and good to go. That is what we want here with our Neighborhood Watch FRS Security system. But, (there is always a but isn't there?) there is something missing.. it's right there in front of us... a basic component that would tie the whole thing together for us!

Here is what is needed... We need a signal of some kind that would alert everyone to pick up their radios and turn them on to CH 5.. Everyone interested in being notified would be in instant communications.

Here is what we have. 3 Block Captain Coordinators with radios tuned to CH5 and on 24/7 but not necessarily listened to 24/7.. That would be asking a lot of any volunteer. However, it is a good system that can be improved. They monitor CH 5 like many hobbyists in the park listen to a scanner to hear what public service agencies are doing.

Now we need a system that channels phone calls to these 3 coordinators about park events and emergencies. They then need an alarm of some sort to sound if they deem it necessary to make a park wide broadcast on CH 5.

I know there would have to be stringent rules about what constitutes an emergency that requires an alarm to be set off lest we begin to cry wolf to often.

For the most part things affecting the park that are non- emergencies like the shutting off of water or loss of power (even though they have the potential of becoming an emergency) could be relayed by a neighbor tuning to CH 5 and asking one of our coordinators if anything is going on. The coordinators will be informed about this type of information by Larry Henson.

However, if a coordinator, following park guidelines, (that don't exist as of yet) deemed a situation an emergency then he/she would activate the neighborhood emergency alert system and everyone would know that they should tune to CH 5 FRS to be informed and to get help.

The Alarm? Here is the way it could work for no cost to LVH or it's residents. Selected volunteers through out the park would agree to click the emergency horn icon on their car's key chain and let their car horn oscillate for 5 minutes. Neighbors hearing that would be asked to turn on their horns for 5 minutes. Horns can be activated from inside the home by just a press of the button. At the end of 5 minutes horns are turned off and folks are tuned to CH 5 to listen for instructions.

This system would need practice drills to get people used to what to do.

I would like to give the system a try but we need folks to buy into the idea... That means that there will not be 100% agreement. There are people on one end of the spectrum who think readiness, Neighborhood watch and CERT are a bunch of hooey. There are those on the other that think they should be involved in preparation for any event. Of course the majority live in the middle.

Do you have a comment or suggestion on how we can use this system? Let's hear them. Bad good or indifferent.