What is St. Lawrence County RACES?
The St. Lawrence County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is a reserve that provides the government of St. Lawrence County with a variety of professional unpaid volunteer skills, including administrative, technical and operational, for emergency tactical, administrative and logistical communications, such as with its agencies, municipalities within the County, neighboring governments and the State Emergency Management Office.
RACES mission is to operate and maintain Amateur communications systems and to perform unique, accurate and efficient communications services to assist government officials in the protection of life and property. RACES promotes the effective man and utilization of the Amateur Radio Operators in support of civil defense and disaster response recovery.
RACES was established by the FCC in 1952. RACES was envisioned to be a temporary service to provide radio communication for civil defense purposes. It is administered by local, county, and state civil defense organizations and is supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as the FCC. The rules that apply to RACES are in Section 97.407 of the Commission’s Rules. All communications transmitted in RACES must be specifically authorized by the civil defense organization for the area served and only certain types of civil defense communications may be transmitted.
RACES is administered under the guidance of the St. Lawrence County Director of Emergency Services.
Would you like to become a member of St. Lawrence County ARES - RACES and help support Emergency and Public Service communications in our county? If you would, please contact Kerry Bickford - WA2NAN for more information. kerry2@slic.com
RACES mission is to operate and maintain Amateur communications systems and to perform unique, accurate and efficient communications services to assist government officials in the protection of life and property. RACES promotes the effective man and utilization of the Amateur Radio Operators in support of civil defense and disaster response recovery.
RACES was established by the FCC in 1952. RACES was envisioned to be a temporary service to provide radio communication for civil defense purposes. It is administered by local, county, and state civil defense organizations and is supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as the FCC. The rules that apply to RACES are in Section 97.407 of the Commission’s Rules. All communications transmitted in RACES must be specifically authorized by the civil defense organization for the area served and only certain types of civil defense communications may be transmitted.
RACES is administered under the guidance of the St. Lawrence County Director of Emergency Services.
Would you like to become a member of St. Lawrence County ARES - RACES and help support Emergency and Public Service communications in our county? If you would, please contact Kerry Bickford - WA2NAN for more information. kerry2@slic.com
ICS & NIMS Mandatory Training
(ICS - Incident Command System; NIMS - National Incident Management System)
The New York State Office of Homeland Security has tied future federal grant funding to be received by our RACES - ARES organization, the local government and ultimately the State of New York , to be linked to federally mandated training .
All local, private sector and non-governmental personnel with a direct role in emergency management and response must be trained in defined levels of awareness of the Incident Command System (ICS) and implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
St. Lawrence County must certify to the state government that the county is compliant with the federal requirements.
What This Means For ARES - RACES Members - All members of ARES - RACES must have this training as follows:
Planning Committee Members must have the ICS-100, ICS-200, and ICS-700 training.
Field Operators (all others not on the committee) must have ICS-100 and ICS-700 training.
The ICS 100, ICS 200 and IS-700 courses are all available at the FEMA web site.
The courses involve going through a selection of slides with some embedded videos and then taking an open book test. There is a downloadable PDF Study Guide that may be downloaded as a reference as you go though each course. Before taking they test, it will ask for your SS# as identification, (if you don't want to give your SS# on-line they give you an address to send it to via US. Mail)
NOTE: Your Social Security Number is used as your student identification number. This data is encrypted at the time it is entered on the form prior to transmission. It is maintained in a secure government database and not distributed to any other source. If you do not supply a Social Security Number (SSN), your test is not transmitted to the database. If you want FEMA to assign your account an alternate student ID number, send your request and a photocopy of your voter registration card, U.S. passport or birth certificate to: EMI - Independent Study Program; 16825 South Seton Avenue; Emmitsburg, MD 21727-8998. You must wait to receive your student ID number before you submit your exam. You will then be able to use this nine-digit number in lieu of your SSN. Please be aware that this action can take several weeks.
After you submit the test you will be notified that you passed successfully and they will send you a certificate. A copy of your certificate will be needed for the files at the EOC. Please send a copy of your certificate to:
Kerry Bickford
76 county route 27 ext.
Oswegatchie, N.Y. 13670
All local, private sector and non-governmental personnel with a direct role in emergency management and response must be trained in defined levels of awareness of the Incident Command System (ICS) and implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
St. Lawrence County must certify to the state government that the county is compliant with the federal requirements.
What This Means For ARES - RACES Members - All members of ARES - RACES must have this training as follows:
Planning Committee Members must have the ICS-100, ICS-200, and ICS-700 training.
Field Operators (all others not on the committee) must have ICS-100 and ICS-700 training.
The ICS 100, ICS 200 and IS-700 courses are all available at the FEMA web site.
The courses involve going through a selection of slides with some embedded videos and then taking an open book test. There is a downloadable PDF Study Guide that may be downloaded as a reference as you go though each course. Before taking they test, it will ask for your SS# as identification, (if you don't want to give your SS# on-line they give you an address to send it to via US. Mail)
NOTE: Your Social Security Number is used as your student identification number. This data is encrypted at the time it is entered on the form prior to transmission. It is maintained in a secure government database and not distributed to any other source. If you do not supply a Social Security Number (SSN), your test is not transmitted to the database. If you want FEMA to assign your account an alternate student ID number, send your request and a photocopy of your voter registration card, U.S. passport or birth certificate to: EMI - Independent Study Program; 16825 South Seton Avenue; Emmitsburg, MD 21727-8998. You must wait to receive your student ID number before you submit your exam. You will then be able to use this nine-digit number in lieu of your SSN. Please be aware that this action can take several weeks.
After you submit the test you will be notified that you passed successfully and they will send you a certificate. A copy of your certificate will be needed for the files at the EOC. Please send a copy of your certificate to:
Kerry Bickford
76 county route 27 ext.
Oswegatchie, N.Y. 13670
The ICS-213 form
Click here to download the most current ICS-213 form.