“Lost Boats on Bear Lake” Exercise

Bryce Nielson, Contributor

Rich Civic Times

As the Rich County Emergency Manager, it is my responsibility coordinate emergency responses in Rich County.  Since Bear Lake is split between Idaho and Utah, it is imperative that we have meaningful communication and exercise lake scenarios together.  This became blatantly clear to emergency responders last year with the tragic drowning event.

Alan Eborn, Bear Lake County Emergency Manager and myself have discussed doing joint exercises on the Lake.  Eldon Kearl, Fish Haven, who is an Amateur Radio operator and member of the Bear Lake Valley Club wanted to be more involved in communications in the event of an emergency.  Eldon has worked extensively building a Communication Trailer, at his own expense, that now provides both counties with the ability to communicate effectively using many platforms.

Discussions and planning focused around utilizing Ham’s in the club to become “spotters and communicators” that could be deployed to different vantage points around the lake in the event of an emergency boat rescue.  An exercise was scheduled for June 25, 2016.  The exercise was planned with a number of players.  Rich and Bear Lake county EM’s, Sheriff’s, and Search and Rescue.  Members of the Bear Lake Valley Amateur Radio Club (which had the most participants), US Coast Guard Auxiliary, Garden City Fire District and Idaho State Parks participated.  Utah State Parks did not want to be involved since they were too busy on that Saturday.  

We all convened and broke up into groups Saturday and were give maps/views of four spotter points around the lake.  All communication was done over amateur radio so we didn’t interfere with law enforcement communications.  We had one private boat go out on the lake from the marina and “get lost”.  A PWC with dummies (people in the water) was deployed from North Beach.  The Idaho State Parks, USCG, and GCFD boats were sent out at the same time.

The exercise started fine, but then an actual emergency of a boat in distress occurred off North Beach and the exercise stopped until that was taken care of.  After a couple of hours and lots of looking through binoculars and spotting scopes, the watercraft were finally located, contacted and the exercise terminated.

The participants then met in Fish Haven for a Hot Wash (review of the exercise and lessons learned).  Observers were surprised how difficult it could be locating watercraft on Bear Lake on a perfect day.  Things like boat descriptions and colors varied, viewing was hampered by sun angle, evaporation and mirages, communication was good but certainly could be improved and keeping track of rescue boats by personnel on shore was tough.  Many other things were discussed and personal experiences were recounted.

The exercise was a success and now both states, USCG and amateur radio operators can work better together in the event of an emergency that we hope never happens.