Story County EMA and Story County ARES will be hosting free ICS-100 and ICS-200 training on Saturday, April 2nd from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames.  The classes are designed to be an interactive discussion of the concepts presented so that you will have a better understanding of what Incident Command is and how you will fit into the system during an emergency response.  Story County EMA Coordinator Keith Morgan will present the FEMA course material, provide real-world examples, and lead a group discussion to make the material more applicable to a local response here in central Iowa.  Immediately after each lesson, participants will be able to use their personal laptops or tablets and the MGMC public Wi-Fi to take the final assessments from the FEMA training website.  Lunch will be on your own from 11:30 to 12:30.  MGMC’s second floor cafeteria will be available for hot food and Burgees Espresso Café on the main floor offers sandwiches.

The ICS-100 and ICS-200 courses are designed to provide a “baseline”, as they introduce basic National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) concepts and provide the foundation for higher-level trainings.  These courses are designated by FEMA as providing the knowledge required for core competency for all emergency and incident response personnel in the field, including amateur radio volunteers, and are also prerequisites for many other courses, including ICS-100 being needed for the ARRL Introduction to Emergency Communication Course (EC-001).  This classroom offering is a unique opportunity, as these courses are usually only available online as self-study.  Even if you have completed the courses previously online, you are still encouraged to attend as a refresher to benefit from the discussion and examples.  Two years ago we held an ICS-100 and IC-700 class in the same format and the participant response was overwhelmingly positive.