March has brought quite a weather change month. Warm one day and cold the next. Skywarn® operations were 21 sessions and 240 hours of spotting time. District C had a severe hail storm on March 14th with huge amounts of vehicle and home damage (my car being one of them). Hail reports of golf ball size hail and larger were reported. It hailed so hard at our EOC in St. Charles Co. you could hardly hear others in the center from the loud noise of the hail hitting the roof. It seems that our weather is changing from past years.
District News and Comments:
District A – Richard Fretwell, W0KRF, DEC
- Benton Co. – BC ARES Members participated in the following nets: MTN, MESN, ARES, Region A Healthcare, and various club nets.
- Cass Co. – Cass county Missouri ARES had 4 meeting in march which training members in the use of radios and winlink person to person. Three member demonstrate direct station to station communications and sent date. Meeting with Cass county emergency management was attended by the ec and aec to discuss preparedness in the county. Cass medical center provided information on their communications systems and planning for an exercise in April. Members attended stop the bleed training at the Cass medical center. The Cass county sheriff’s office in conjunction with nws provided a storm spotter training for members. Work on a mesh 2.4ghz communication network for Cass county continues with the acquisition of equipment. This equipment will require setup flashing of memory and installation.
- Clay/Platte Cos. – The program “Stop the Bleed” presented by representatives from the Medical Field was enlightening. Members worked with trainers for hands on experience. NWS Missouri/Kansas annual tornado drill net operation received reports from 19 stations across three counties in the KC metro area. March 13, “Severe Strom warning” alerts NL ARES opened a WX net. Reports from Platte, Clay, & Jackson counties confirmed damaging Hail cores, Golf ball size reported. Updates were reported directly to NWS via the updated NWS Chat system.
District F – J. D. Simmons, WA0BER, DEC
- District-wide Tornado Drill 3-6-2024 in coordination with SEMA Tornado Drill. Participants checked into area repeaters. 100 contacts, 8 counties with check ins: Audrain-Callaway-Camden-Cole-Boone-Montgomery-Morgan-Osage
The following are the activities and volunteer hours for the month of March:
73,
Jeff KB3HF
Missouri SEC