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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] MSAR hasty search, wilderness area

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  • From: Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] MSAR hasty search, wilderness area
  • Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 14:57:32 -0600

I received some questions off list re how our callouts work, which I
will answer briefly here.

I should explain that in New Mexico by state law SAR is the job of
NM Department of Public Safety, not county sheriffs nor county EMA.
We also have many federal lands, Native American sovereign nations,
and vast tracts of land that are privately owned.

NM DPS has a SAR Resource Office, which compiles a Resource Directory
that is distributed to all individuals who are certified as Incident
Commander or Section Chief. Statewide there are roughly 60 SAR teams,
among many other resources. Each team has at least one point of
contact and its own internal callout procedures. Some teams use an
automated system, others use tried and true phone trees. Some have
pagers. Most don't. Some use text messaging, but as far as I know
most don't. Some have a cell phone or pager devoted to receiving
callouts; most don't. Most teams get few SAR callouts in the course
of a year so do not invest in equipment or software for handling
callouts. I certainly do not criticize.

An older cell phone with a pay-as-you-go plan makes a good low-cost
duty phone for a volunteer SAR team. It can be handed off to whoever
is the duty officer for the team that week or month.

The team that was unable to round up anyone on a Saturday morning is
in a rural area where cell coverage is poor along major highways and
nil back in the canyons where local residents run their cattle. There
is just no contacting these people by phone if they have already left
pavement. These are very self sufficent people and few use ham radio.

To those reading who are not in New Mexico: NM is one model of how
to run a statewide SAR system. It is not necessarily the best model,
but it is a model that other states are looking at.

Una




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