ARES/RACES

The following is a listing of the activities of Rensselaer County RACES.  There are three types of activations.  

1. Declared Disaster - Declared disasters can be local (town), county wide, state wide, and national.  Emergencies are declared by an authorized member of the political subdivision involved.  In the case of the County, it generally is the Director of Emergency Services.  Examples are blizzards, ice storms, flooding, nuclear incidents, major fires, and evacuations.
2. Undeclared Disasters - An emergency that does not effect a signifigant portion of the population.  These can be structure fires, flood watches and the like.
3. Public Service Events - Rensselaer County RACES operates as two seperate organizations, one as an official part of county government, and two, as an amateur radio club, ARES, with its primary focus in emergency communications.