A New Look for RPG Coordinators

by Bob Buddemeier

You will soon be seeing people stunningly attired in lime-green safety vests.  This is the distinctive emergency garment of our Residents’ Preparedness Group (RPG) volunteers.  We hope that your first viewing will be in a training exercise – but the ultimate purpose is to equip and identify them as volunteers assisting RVM Management in preparing for and responding to emergencies.

The RVM Emergency Planning Task Force (Alexander ben Israel, Drew Gilliland, and Jens Larsen) has been meeting with the RPG Leadership Team (Bob Buddemeier, Bob Walden, Dan Curtis, Don Barry, and formerly Dan Wagner).  The two groups are now in the process of working on joint plans and procedures for cooperation in dealing with a variety of emergencies and disasters.

With formal roles and responsibilities for the RPG Coordinators taking shape, it became clear that they needed to be recognizable by staff and by other residents, and suitably prepared.  Some resident donors volunteered to fund the purchase of vests and other supplies.

The vests selected are mesh (cooler in hot weather), and have both attachments for radios and six pockets that can be used to store and carry supplies and small equipment.  The color and striping will enhance visibility and identification in low light conditions, and lime green was chosen because it stands out much better than orange against a background of flames (joke – we hope).

As a starter kit of supplies, each vest comes with a pocket notebook, a short pencil, and a chisel-point black permanent marker.  The primary role of the RPG is supporting RVM in the areas of communication and collecting, recording and transmitting information.  The starter kit provides tools of these trades, and add conventional technologies to the radio network currently being established.

Hand-held radios (colloquially called walkie-talkies) have been purchased with Resident Council funds for all Area, Building, Floor, and Neighborhood coordinators.  These are intended to link the RPG coordinator structure to the RVM Emergency Incident Commander or to other critical emergency resources.  The network and procedures have been designed by the RPG Radio Communication Team, headed by Dan Curtis.

Most of the cottage Neighborhood and Area coordinators have been supplied with radios, and Ken Kelley is conducting training sessions.  Once the system has been tested and the RPG-RVM links developed, radio distribution and training in the towers will begin.

Although a fully operational system is still some time away, each of the steps being taken brings us closer to an integrated and effective approach to dealing with major problems at RVM.