Members of the Westfield Emergency Management Communications section participated in a American and Canadian emergency communications drill over a twenty-four hour period on June 26th and 27th.  Sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, the annual drill known as the ARRL Field Day, involves thousands of Amateur Radio Operators (Ham Radio) from North America.

The WEMA Communications members demonstrated the ability to communicate over a vast area in the event of an emergency.  The radio operators succeeded in making hundreds of contacts with forty-eight defined States, Provinces or areas (colored areas in the map).  The group, consisting of three amateur radio operators leveraged the amateur radio equipment available at the Westfield Emergency Operations Center and a variety of amateur frequencies to make these contacts.  The areas not contacted could easily have been communicated with relay stations if needed during an emergency.

The Westfield Technology Center and Westfield Emergency Management will be hosting an Open House at our facilities.

The Open House is on Wednesday, June 23^rd from 4:00pm until 7:00pm.  It is open to the public.

Please see the attached flyer for additional details.

The City of Westfield has conducted two of three exercises with Westfield State College to test our response to a major emergency at the College.  The Scenario is that there is an explosion in the Laboratory of one of the buildings, and there are several victims that must be treated for injuries.   A tabletop exercise was held in October 2009 with attendance from the Westfield Police, Westfield Fire, Westfield Emergency Management, Massachusetts State Police, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Medical Reserve Corps, and Noble Hospital.

The Westfield Public Schools had several individuals attend as observers so they could understand how they may operate and the challenges we may face if a similar incident were to occur at a school.  Westfield State College established a Command Center to address issues that the college must respond to.   In addition, they provided a representative to be in the Incident Command Center, and the exercise enabled individuals to test their skills in responding and working with others in an Incident Command Structure.

During the functional exercise, the focus was on the flow of information between the college and the Incident Command Table and between the Incident Command Center and the Emergency Personnel who would be on site.   After each exercise, a discussion was held on lessons learned and this information is used to build the After Action Report (AAR) and will be the guide to use to develop the plans for the full scale exercise scheduled for May 2010.