SAR Bonny Doon

Santa Cruz ARES was activated by the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue organization for a missing person, Jeannie Burke.

ARES was on sight Wednesday evening November 19th. Operations went on through Sunday November 23rd. The operations took place at the Martin Station, “Station 32”, in Bonny Doon. There were 80-100 SAR personnel searching in the rugged terrain in the area.

The first night ARES had two teams in the field tasked with relaying information to and from remote area around Moore Ranch Road off Smith Grade. The location was where a possible sighting of the missing person was reported.

High Bird air support was deployed to relay information to and from teams on the ground because communications were so difficult.

ARES was tasked with relaying information such as team assignments. Other information was relayed such as gate codes and sheriff officers meeting with ground teams. ARES kept logs of all events of note.

The photos don’t show everyone. We had different blocks of times and in some cases different locations.

Some members of our club were our Vice President Jim KN6NCG, our secretary Lisa KN6IAB, Roberta AJ6KN, Dan N6RJX, JoMarie KM6URE, John N6QX, Pete KN6TYR, Tom KO6BTX, Glen AK6FM. Other ARES members who were involved were Tammy KG6DQW and Mike K9VF.  There may be others of you. Let us know.

The W6TUW repeater was a great help at times.

The National Guard came in Sunday with tracking and text message passing devices for search teams.

As of this writing Jeannie Burke had not been located. We hope for the best and wish her family well.

Andrew, N6AAG