Greetings All ARES Members and Leadership Team,
Hurricane Irma is currently the strongest recorded hurricane in the Atlantic Basin and is currently forecasted to have severe impacts on the United States this weekend. Forecasts continue to change on almost an hourly basis. There is a significant chance that South Carolina could be impacted by the end of the weekend. The timing and significance of the event is still unknown, but this is the time to start putting our ARES plans in place.
The South Carolina Emergency Management Division is now operating at OPCON 4. Please see the end of the document for a description on the various operating conditions. ARES will be operating at this same level.
Emergency Coordinators, please email your DEC with a list of volunteers who are willing and capable of deploying outside their respective county.
District Emergency Coordinators, please gather the lists from all your EC’s and combine the list and pass on to the SEC and State DEC via feedback@ares-sc.org.
For those in leadership positions that need to evacuate, please pass on to your DEC or SEC respectively. We will need to make staffing decisions sooner rather than later. If you already know who is going to staff an EOC, Hospital or shelter, please pass this information on as well.
I realize this is still preliminary, but I want to get ahead of the curve. There is still much to work out.
Thanks for all you do,
Billy L. Irwin – k9oh
Section Emergency Coordinator
ARRL South Carolina Section
Cell: 803-497-5560
Office: 803-567-2400
Description of Levels of Readiness
| OPCON Levels | |
| OPCON 5 (Green) | Most day-to-day operations to include normal training and exercises. Pre-disaster preparedness activities that usually fall outside of the requirement to activate the SEOC may begin during this time frame. |
| OPCON 4 (Blue) | Possibility of an emergency or disaster situation that may require state coordination during emergency management operations. SEOC activation is dependent on the status of the event. |
| OPCON 3 (Yellow) | Disaster or emergency situation is likely. The South Carolina Emergency Operations Plan and the appropriate specific impact hazard emergency plan is activated. |
| OPCON 2 (Orange) | Disaster or emergency situation is imminent or in effect. |
| OPCON 1 (Red) | Major disaster or emergency situation in effect; highest state of emergency operations and the SEOC is at fully activated. |