When cell towers overload or the power's out for a week, the people passing traffic for shelters, hospitals and emergency managers are volunteers who trained for it beforehand. These are the groups. They overlap, they cooperate, and most active people belong to more than one.
ARES - Amateur Radio Emergency Service
Run by the ARRL, organised by section and county with an Emergency Coordinator (EC) at each level. ARES serves agencies that ask for help - the Red Cross, hospitals, county emergency management - under agreements set up in advance. Requires a ham licence. Most groups hold a weekly net, run a training track (the FEMA ICS-100/200/700/800 courses are the usual entry ticket) and exercise a few times a year. This is the broadest on-ramp.
RACES - Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service
A creature of FCC rule 97.407: amateur stations registered with a civil-defence organisation, activated only by that government authority during an emergency it declares. Members are pre-registered with the county or state. In many places the same people are ARES on a normal day and RACES when the emergency manager says so.
AUXCOMM - Auxiliary Communications
A training track from CISA (DHS) that teaches amateur operators to work inside a government emergency operations centre, alongside public-safety comms staff, using ICS. Take it after the FEMA basics if you want to be the one at the EOC rather than in the field.
CERT - Community Emergency Response Team
FEMA's neighbourhood programme: basic disaster response, light search and rescue, first aid, fire safety, and organising your block until professionals arrive. No radio licence required - teams typically use FRS/GMRS on an agreed channel. If you have a GMRS licence and a family to look after, this is the most immediately useful training on the list.
REACT - Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams
Founded in the CB days (1962), now largely GMRS. Teams monitor the travel and emergency channel, provide communications for public events, and relay in emergencies. The natural home for GMRS operators who want structure.
SKYWARN
The NWS spotter programme, covered in its own article. Not an emcomm organisation as such, but the same nets and the same people.
What they all have in common
- A served agency. You don't self-deploy. Someone asks, someone activates, someone tells you where to be.
- Training before the event. ICS basics, the group's own procedures, and the discipline of a directed net.
- Exercises. Field Day, simulated emergency tests, weekly nets. The habit is the point.
- A go-kit - radio, power for 24 hours, antenna, cables, a written frequency list, pen and paper, water. Start small; the group will tell you what they actually use.
Where to start
- Look at the Emergency comms tile on your state hub. If it's empty, your state coordinator needs the contacts - and you may be the person who knows them.
- Check into the weekly net. Just listen the first time.
- Do ICS-100 and IS-700 online. They're free and take an evening.
- Show up to one exercise. Everything after that is easy.