Clients and Partners

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City of Ottawa
Ottawa Red Cross
Ottawa Hospitals
Ottawa Amateur Radio Club

Additional Information

Emergency Management College - "Collegeville"
CN Cycle for CHEO (formerly Tour Nortel)

Clients

EMRG clients are the organizations who actually use EMRG emergency communications services. The three main clients are the City of Ottawa Department of Community Services, the Ottawa Red Cross, and the Ottawa Salvation Army. These organizations have identified a possible requirement for radio communications in an emergency and a desire to have EMRG provide that radio communications service.

  • The Hospitals in Ottawa are also a client, with their requirement being a backup to their existing dedicated emergency management radio system.
  • Other ARES groups in Eastern Ontario are also clients, in the sense that EMRG expects to provide mutual aid to them if requested. Similarly, EMRG expects mutual aid from them if requested. All this is on a "best efforts" basis with no guarantees. <Insert Picture ARESMutualAid.jpg>
  • EMO ARES, the ARES group that supports Emergency Management Ontario (EMO) is also an ARES Mutual Aid client. In the event that the City of Ottawa and EMO were not able to communicate, EMRG could provide that communications with EMO ARES.
  • The Canadian Emergency Management College, operated by Public Safety Canada, uses Amateur radio volunteers provided by EMRG for their Emergency Operations Centre courses. This is a great opportunity for local Amateurs to gain experience in an EOC and to demonstrate the value of Amateur radio to emergency management participants from across Canada who take the courses.
  • The CN Cycle for CHEO (formerly Tour Nortel) is also an EMRG client, for public service communications. This provides an opportunity to deploy EMRG members as a means of building experience, while also providing a community service.

Partners

EMRG partners are the organizations who provide support for EMRG, but who are not actual users of EMRG services. There are 3 EMRG partners:

  • City of Ottawa Office of Emergency Management (OEM)
  • Ottawa Fire Service (OFS)
  • Ottawa Amateur Radio Club (OARC).

City of Ottawa

The emergency communications services of EMRG are available to the City of Ottawa and EMRG is included in the City's Official Emergency Plan. EMRG reports to the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), but would typically be used to provide communications for Community Services, the City department responsible to operate and manage shelters in an emergency.

In the event that more than one group or agency has requested the services of EMRG, the response priority is always the City of Ottawa. In a situation where more than one group or agency is requesting EMRG assistance, it is probably a common emergency and the groups or agencies are working with the City of Ottawa. EMRG resources would be prioritized through the Office of Emergency Management, in consultation with other groups, to provide the most effective use possible.

EMRG has an excellent relationship with the City of Ottawa, through various City of Ottawa departments. OEM and Community Services are the primary groups EMRG works with. The Ottawa Fire Service (OFS) is an important partner, providing infrastructure for EMRG operations within the City. OFS provides space for the EMRG communications room and equipment storage, as well as access to antennas within the City for EMRG radio repeaters.

Providing backup communications for Public Safety (Police, Fire, Paramedics) radio systems is NOT a mandate for EMRG. If the City of Ottawa radio system used by Police and Fire failed, or if the Provincial radio system used by Paramedics failed, EMRG would attempt to assist as much as possible if requested, but it would be best effort at the time. It must be understood that there are not sufficient radios, or radio infrastructure (repeaters) for EMRG to support more than a few key sites, which is significantly less than the several thousand radios and over 50 sites these groups normally use. This is why the radio systems used by these agencies cost so much, because they have built in fail safe systems to ensure that the system can operate even in a reduced mode if something should happen to the system.

City Of Ottawa Emergency Related Links: Emergency Preparedness for Residents of Ottawa

Office of Emergency Management - City of Ottawa

The Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is the primary interface for EMRG in the City of Ottawa and EMRG is responsible to OEM. OEM is responsible for the EMRG agreement with the City and provides funding for EMRG projects. The support from the Office of Emergency Management and the former RMOC Emergency Measures Unit (EMU) has been excellent. Some of the OEM support includes:

  • Manage relationship, signed agreement, activate EMRG for the City, City IDs
  • Provided initial funding in 2005, plus yearly funding. The funding covers project materials and maintenance
  • Funded several specific projects:
    • Standard power connector (Anderson Powerpole)
    • Surplus radio equipment removal from Carlington Heights
    • Antenna change at Fire Dispatch tower
  • Surplus radio equipment from old EMU Backup radio system and EOC.

Ottawa Fire Service - City of Ottawa

The Ottawa Fire Service (OFS) is the prime infrastructure partner for EMRG, working in partnership with OEM. OFS is extremely supportive of EMRG and provides infrastructure including:

  • Dedicated EMRG Radio room at Fire Dispatch with access to antennas on the roof and the tower
  • Storage space for equipment
  • Radio repeater sites in fire stations at 4 key locations in the City
  • Surplus radio equipment
  • Access to the training centre

Red Cross

The Ottawa branch of the Canadian Red Cross and the Emergency Measures Radio Group have an agreement, through which the Red Cross has access to the communications capabilities of EMRG. EMRG operates and maintains the radio equipment located at the Ottawa Red Cross offices on Catherine Street.

Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) and the Canadian Red Cross have a high level MOU in which RAC will provide communications capabilities to the Red Cross, through the local ARES group.

Ottawa Hospitals

The Emergency Measures Radio Group (EMRG) is a member of the Hospital Emergency Preparedness Committee of Ottawa (HEPCO). The committee meets regularly to discuss issues related to hospital emergency preparedness planning.

The primary members of the committee include hospital emergency planners, with affiliated representatives from all other key agencies such as Police, Fire, Paramedics, OEM, Red Cross and EMRG.

EMRG's role in an emergency is to augment or provide backup communications for the intra-hospital radio system, which is used to connect the hospital disaster planning teams together. The intra-hospital radio system is called HERO (Healtcare Emergency Radio of Ottawa).

The members of the Hospital Disaster Planning Committee of Ottawa are:

Ottawa Amateur Radio Club (OARC) provides access to their VHF and UHF repeaters (VE2CRA) at Camp Fortune, support in their club newsletter and weekly radio net, as well as direct support through donations such as the new Kantronics TNC in the fall of 2008.