Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

To any of you who are interested in being involved,

After the Albert Pike incident, I received a number of inquiries concerning the creation of an organized task force made up of experienced whitewater paddlers.

The goal ultimately is to be able to offer quick assistance and support to emergency managers when there are high water events that exceed the capacities of their normal resources.

There are many challenges to doing this, but I'm quite certain that we can pull this off in some form. I had put a post out previously in the "Albert Pike" thread about this, and received several responses, but at this point I need to see how many more of our members would be interested in being involved.

What I need is for you to e-mail me (not PM) the following info that will allow the creation of a database of resources. This information needs to include the following -

1. Full Name and mailing address as well as ways to contact you quickly in the event of an emergency, such as a cell phone number etc. We would use a call out tree to contact you.

2. Pertinent training and certifications with as much detail as possible (i.e. CPR, expires 2012 - ACA certs, classes - etc ) the more you can tell me the better, if you think it makes you qualified to help as a rescuer put it on there!

3. Paddling background (ok, so not so much detail here, basically the class of water that you paddle regularly with comfort, how many days a year you get out and paddle, and what times of the year (this is part of the presentation I am working on and my goal is to educate agencies with the level of skill and experience our people have to offer)

4. Types of equipment you would be willing to show up with (oar rig, kayak, ww canoe) as well as trailers, large capacity vehicles
etc.

5. Your availability: Are you weekends only? Able to leave work? How long could you stay out for? How far are you willing to travel?

Please e-mail this to SwiftwaterRescue @gmail.com

Be assured, this information will be kept private.

Sending your response in no way commits you to anything, nor does it make you an official responder or team member or anything else at this time:) as explained, this is all in the beginning phases and will require some time to make it a reality.

Currently there are no details to give you and I am sure there will be more questions as we get further into this. The first step however is to find out what resources we have to offer.

Thanks for being willing to consider offering your skills and time !!! We as a paddling community have some very unique abilities when it comes to these types of events and hopefully we will be able to help our friends and neighbors when needed.

Cheers,

Thanks for doing this. (I set my own goal to get you the e-mail before the Board meeting, that's the only reason you haven't already heard from me.)

If anyone is not sure what this is about, or needs a reminder about what we are trying to do with this Water Rescue Resource, please read back through this thread!

http://forums.arkansascanoeclub.com/vie ... =1&t=16222" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Email on the way Tom. I have listed my qualifications and the resources I have available. Thank you Heather for resurfacing this important thread. A valuable lesson was learned last year. So, let's try our best not to repeat it and organize our efforts.

What I can offer is > 30 year paddling, whitewater shredder, super puma(oar or paddle) WW canoe, rescue and recovery experience( a little formal, more from experience), CPR, wilderness medicine, mostly available at anytime(except when on call about every 2 weeks), and practical experience in both search and rescue. H 479-967-1343, C 479-264-8828, fax 479-967-7034, beeper 479-964-7172, work 479- 331-3880. If given enough time, I can basically bring an ER to wherever except for Imaging studies. dale