Communications Watch?

We have an alert state for The Virtual Emergency Operations Center (TVEOC) called "Communications Watch."  So, what does that mean, and why do we do it?

Alert states in an emergency operations center are a way to manage staffing and functions throughout the life cycle of a specific disaster.  Obviously, when the earliest hints that a disaster might occur appear, we do not need every member on duty and a full Incident Command System staff running.  On the other hand, we definitely do need more people and more functions when the crisis is on us.  Alert states give us clear guidelines for people and actions for a developing event so that we can provide effective support to other organizations.  And they allow us to increase both in an orderly way as the situation deteriorates.

On a day-to-day basis we operate routine operations in a Released alert state.  This means we have a Watch Officer on duty, and we check our systems on a regular basis to ensure they are functioning correctly.  The Watch Officer maintains situation awareness, monitoring a variety of sources to determine if there is a potential threat in an area where we provide support to one or more organizations.

 

When a threat starts to develop, or when governmental emergency management systems start to increase their alert levels, we need to increase the level of preparedness for action by monitoring the TVEOC communications links and our information sources more frequently.  At the same time we need to give the membership an alert that activation may be required for an imminent event, and develop initial plans and briefings for response.  Hence we declare a Communications Watch.  

 

A Communications Watch differs from the Warning Orders our Watch Officers send out to alert the members to potential threats.  A Warning Order is a heads up that something may happen with no action required other than increasing personal situation awareness (although we may send one as the first alert in a rapidly developing situation).  A Communications Watch is a set of actions by the staff on duty and by individual members to increase our ability to respond to an event that we can identify as having an imminent requirement for us to initiate operations. 

 

So read your Communications Watch checklist, and the next time a Communications Watch is declared be ready to take the actions it specifies.