On Friday, Feb 5th at 1552 hrs CCAR staff was alerted that a response was needed for the Atglen area. EC Jim Harris contacted the 911 supervisor who informed him of a phone outage and that a member needed to respond to the Atglen firehouse. Jim checked the primary repeater and found three members who had received the notification and were waiting. They were Al W3AHR, Ray KB3IGL, and George W3XE. Jim assigned Ray to respond to Atglen and Al and George to the GSC ARES/RACES room 026. Jim responded to 026 as well. By 1615 026 was fully operational with George serving as net control. Jim checked in with the 911 supervisor and informed him of CCAR status and that Ray was responding to the firehouse. Ray's position was continuously monitored by his APRS tracker and given directions to the firehouse by Al and George. Ray arrived about 5 minutes after phone service was restored (1805 hrs).
In all, 4 CCAR members were deployed and 5 more on standby.

Ray has provided detailed information on what went right and other items that need improvement (such as turnover, repeater coverage, go kit contents, etc). Ray did respond in less than favorable conditions as the snow was falling for what was to become a 13-20" showfall across the county.

John Haynes (Deputy Director of 911 Center) commented this was a very good mobilization that the team took control of the net and all was prepared for a long outage.

Special note: Ray makes it a point to carry a full 3 day go kit at all times. This contributed to CCAR's rapid response and in this case he may have needed the 3 day food supply. All members shoud carry at least a minimal go kit in case of an unexpected deployment.

Note: Chester County Department of Emergency Services has a program to man firehouses in areas affected by a phone outage with trained ARES/RACES operators. The intent is if a resident has an emergency they can go the firehouse and the problem can be communicated directly to the ARES/RACES room which is adjacent to the 911 call center. All operators deployed for this activity must have completed the special 911 call taker training.