Michael Wright, N4MAW, EC, Wilson County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, responded to the Wilson county, Tennessee, Emergency Management Agency's EOC at 4 AM on Saturday, May 1, upon their request and activation of the EOC Weather Operations Team. Wright brought the EOC's HF station on line and began monitoring the Middle Tennessee Emergency Traffic on 3.980 and 7.232 MHz as well as the local 147.105 MHz repeater and the 443.725 MHz repeater (MTEARS Net). The heavy rains arrived later that afternoon.

At 1:30 PM Wright called for the ARES® net to be convened in an informal mode to begin taking reports on the arriving weather, flooding, road conditions, and to provide updates to the operators monitoring the frequencies. Numerous reports of flooding on local roads as well as I-40 in Wilson County were received.

Dave Bonner, KJ4BLG, was deployed to assess the main ingress/egress routes for Watertown upon the request of Wilson EMA officials. Bonner was able to safely determine that the routes were impassable; Watertown was isolated due to flooding. Bonner also reported that residents were evacuating their homes in Watertown and a shelter was needed. Through his efforts, WEMA officials were able to get the Watertown High School opened up as a shelter for evacuees. Seven radio amateurs in Wilson County checked into the net and provided valuable flooding information to WEMA officials throughout the day.

On Sunday, Tom Parker, KB4SFN, responded to an NWS request, and the ARES® net was again active in support of WEMA and its response to the flooding. Again, numerous reports of flooded roads and isolated subdivisions were received and passed onto WEMA officials. The Watertown Fire and Police repeaters went down and ARES® ops received the report and notified WEMA, Wilson County 911, and the Middle Tennessee Electric utility of the situation. ARES® also prepared to send an operator to the Watertown Police and Fire station in order to assist with getting emergency responders en route to any emergency should the repeaters not come back on line quickly.

Wright also assisted the EOC staff with the receipt of flood reports, shelter information requests, and flood information requests. This included taking non-emergency phone calls and operating their low-band public safety radio when no other personnel were available to do so. These operations lasted until 9 PM Sunday night at which time the ARES® organization secured operations upon full release by WEMA officials. -- Michael Wright, N4MAW, Emergency Coordinator, Wilson County Amateur Radio Emergency Service