If you would like to volunteer to run a training session, or if you
have a training session request contact any Board Member or Don
Johnson
Italics = Sign-up
required to attend this training
See following notes:
To reserve use of squad ATV, contact
Don Johnson at 928-474-5335. Jacket, gloves, boots, helmet, and eye
protection required to operate Squad ATV
Active: Members wishing to remain on active status must attend at
least three official Squad functions per quarter of the calendar
year, as well as two training exercises per six months of the
calendar year.
Reserve: Members who wish to remain on reserve status must attend at
least one official Squad function per quarter of the calendar year
as well as one training exercise per six months of the calendar
year.
Laws that are still on the books
Every public vehicle in San Francisco, California, must be outfitted
with a spittoon. That includes taxis, police cruisers, cable cars,
buses, and trolleys.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, has a major problem with drunk drivers.
Therefore, the Department of Motor Vehicles has started issuing
licenses only if people can pass a drunk-driving test. The test
involves driving at a high speed along a crooked, very wavy-lined
highway after drinking two 12-ounce bottles of beer.
There’s a law in Maine that prohibits anyone from stepping out of a
plane while it’s in the air.
Other SAR News
GPS-led travel
goes amiss; 3 Ore. parties rescued
Jan 1, 9:27 PM (ET)
By TIM FOUGHT
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - In a holiday
hurry, Jeramie Griffin piled his family into the car and asked his
new GPS for the quickest way from his home in the Willamette Valley
across the Cascade Range.
It said he could shave 40 minutes
off the time of the roundabout route he usually takes to his future
in-laws' place.
Following the directions, he and
his fiancee headed east on Christmas Eve and into the mountains,
turning off a state highway onto local roads and finally getting
stuck in the snow.
They had no cell phone service and
ran short on formula for their 11-month-old daughter. After taking
exploratory hikes, trying to dig out and spending the night in their
car, the distraught couple filmed a goodbye video.
Like two other parties of holiday
travelers who followed GPS directions smack into Oregon snowbanks,
Griffin and family were eventually rescued. But their peril left law
enforcement officers and travel avisers perplexed about drivers who
occasionally set aside common sense when their GPS systems suggest a
shortcut.
"Did everybody just get these for
Christmas?" asked Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger, leader of one
rescue effort.
In Griffin's case, in fact, the
GPS device was a Christmas gift, from his parents. He used it for
the first time to plan the trip to Central Oregon.
It's one he'd made many times
before, following a route travelers have found reliable since at
least the days of the Oregon Trail. But, he said, a shortcut the GPS
device suggested was attractive.
"We were in such a hurry to get
over there, we programmed it in the driveway and went ahead," he
said.
In hindsight, he said, he should
have double checked the route against a paper map - and packed extra
formula for the baby. "We would be better prepared for the unknown,"
he said.
The AAA and the National
Association for Search and Rescue say they don't sense a surge in
trips that go amiss because of a blind reliance on GPS directions,
but they hear about them from time to time.
"It's usually about every other
month," said Christie Hyde of the national travel association AAA.
It's a small number compared with the millions of GPS units in
service, she said.
She's heard, she said, of one
driver who made a right turn as directed and had to be towed off
railroad tracks, and another party led near the edge of a cliff.
In Oregon, GPS systems can direct
drivers to thousands of miles of Forest Service logging roads that
lace the state's mountain ranges. In the winter, they are often
plugged with snow.
On Christmas Day, a Nevada couple
took one such road in Evinger's County and spent three days stuck.
They were rescued when a break in atmospheric conditions allowed
them to signal their coordinates to 911.
Three Portlanders and their small
dog got into trouble Monday when their vehicle slid off a forest
road as they were using GPS directions to a hot springs in the
southern Willamette Valley. Lane County officials said the three and
the dog were exhausted and mildly hypothermic after walking 17 miles
without survival gear to get into cell phone range and call 911.
Griffin's family was rescued when
friends and relatives used a GPS like Griffin's and duplicated the
route they assumed the family had plotted. That led them straight to
the family. The three had been stuck about 24 hours.
Evinger recalled that within the
last year in his county a hunter in a pickup followed GPS
instructions along a powerline road and got stuck in a marsh, and
travelers in a car got stuck in snow when they turned onto a Forest
Service road that had been closed and converted to use for
snowmobiles.
But, he said, it isn't as if
people have just started getting lost in the woods. "In yesteryear,
it was people not knowing how to read their maps," he said.
Evinger said the statewide task
force on search and rescue he chairs will take up the question of
GPS-led trips next week. He said it probably would focus on
educational efforts rather than legislation.
Law enforcement officials and
travel experts have a variety of recommendations for people who use
GPS in the winter or in strange territory:
Use an old-fashioned paper map as
a backup. Pack a survival kit for the winter. Configure your GPS for
"highways only," or a similar setting, so that you don't get
directed to byways in the winter. Top off your gasoline tank, and
charge your cell phone batteries before going into remote areas. Pay
attention to the weather.
"Our devices don't know what the
weather is," said Jessica Myers, spokeswoman for GPS manufacturer
Garmin. "It's the responsibility of the driver to exercise common
sense.
Several officials recommended
zooming out from GPS displays that focus on the stretch ahead. A
wider view can point to better highways for a safer, if lengthier,
drive. It can also jog a driver's mindset by offering a "full,
bird's-eye view of the area around you," said Marie Dodds,
spokeswoman for the AAA's Oregon and Idaho organization.
The most common advice was high in
"duh" content:
"You can't follow GPS blindly,"
said Hyde of the national AAA.
Says Dodds: "If you are following
your GPS and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of
nowhere with snow all around, don't go there. Turn around."
Business Cards for Active Members
All active members
are permitted to have business cards with your SAR info on them. If
you do not have them yet, or if you have used up the ones you had,
contact Mike Taylor to place your order. They are nice to have when
you are doing any Squad activities, and the best part is they are
free. A common use for them is to hand out to family members of the
search/rescue subject.
Email
miket@trsar.org or call 978-8009.
Website
Tonto Rim SAR Members can now have your very own
email address through our site. Just contact our Webmaster at
jack@jackswebs.com to arrange for it, no cost to you or us.
