The Point Reyes Disaster Council was activated last Thursday for the first time in over five years, and ran mostly without a hitch. The council consists of a radio network of eyewitness civilian radio operators and relays information to the county’s firehouse in Point Reyes Station. “Everybody stepped in and stepped up,” said Lynn Axelrod, who became the council’s coordinator in February. “The goal is disaster readiness and disaster help. We had a day before the storm hit, and when it arrived everyone who had been trained stepped in and did their job well.” The council works in a pyramid structure, with local volunteers known as neighborhood liaisons using walkie-talkies to communicate information to area coordinators, who then send the latest information to a crew stationed at the firehouse. Despite a bevy of fresh faces, reports indicated that the council ran the show from the firehouse like veterans. “It went very smoothly,” said Alicia Johnson, an area coordinator for Inverness Park. “The storm wasn’t as bad as what was anticipated. We didn’t get to any crisis point. It was very calm, not too over the top.” The only bump was when a repeater—which swings radio signals around large impediments like mountains—failed atop Mount Vision. The repeater was quickly replaced by Richard Dillman, a head liaison for Inverness Park, who rushed up Mount Vision in the wind and rain and kept the communications network stable. The council hopes more people will train as neighborhood liaisons in preparation for the next emergency that hits West Marin. “What we all have in common is we all live here and we all want to protect our neighbors,” Ms. Axelrod said. “It’s a fabulous volunteer residential liaison system.”
This article was corrected on Dec. 21 to reflect the actual location of the disaster council’s area coordinators during a disaster—in their neighborhoods, not at the firehouse.