Twice in August WICEN New South Wales was acti­vat­ed to assist in search­es for 

miss­ing peo­ple, as part of its com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­i­sa­tion with The NSW Vol­un­teer Res­cue Asso­ci­a­tion under the State Emer­gency and Res­cue Man­age­ment Act. 

 

The first acti­va­tion on August 6–7 in the Dal­me­ny area on the south coast is where WICEN pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port helped teams look for an elder­ly man. 

 

Ground crews and a heli­copter searched very dif­fi­cult bush­land ter­rain but failed to find the man who wan­dered off from a retire­ment home. 

 

The sec­ond acti­va­tion August 11–12 was for a search for a miss­ing 24 year old man north- west of Syd­ney in the Hawkes­bury area, who is thought to have walked off after a party. 

 

WICEN pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port for teams from mul­ti­ple agen­cies once the search had pro­gressed into more dif­fi­cult terrain. 

 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, IARU Region 3 Chair­man, Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee