SVUSD looks to amateur radios for emergencies

YERMO • It’s 12:30 p.m. on a Monday when the earthquake strikes. You’re at work in Victorville, your 8-year-old is at Lewis Elementary School, land lines and cell phones are cut off and Fort Irwin Road is closed.

Realizing that traditional lines of communication could be cut off in a disaster, Silver Valley Unified School District officials bought amateur radios for each of its schools and the district office. About 28 teachers, principals and community volunteers spent Thursday and Friday learning to operate them. Each person will take a test needed to earn a radio operating license next Saturday.

“When cell phones, desk phones and computers break down radio is independent of any infrastructure,” said Moe Deleon, an employee with the San Bernardino County Fire Department who has been training amateur radio operators for 12 years.

The district paid roughly $600 per radio and the training cost the district $40 per person, said Steven Desist, the district’s executive director of human resources. The radios will be used for schools to communicate with each other and the district office as well as with local fire departments.

The district decided to update its disaster preparedness plan following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Desist said. In October, district employees trained to become part of a Certified Community Emergency Response Team, learning how to assist emergency workers in a disaster.

Patti Baer, one of the radio trainees who is also the principal at Lewis Elementary at Fort Irwin, said she was there when the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks occurred.

“In emergency situations you do feel like you’re isolated,” she said. “The military takes care of its own. We have to be as well prepared to take care of our own.”

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