in NZ. Spain In Spain, REMER (Red Radio de Emergencia, Emergency Radio Network) is a national HF/VHF network formed by volunteer ham radio operators, and it is co-ordinated by the local Civil defense groups, which are dependent from the local government authority. It was founded on 1982. Russia The volunteer organization called RAS formed in 1988, and at the end of 2012, the Union of Russian Radio amateurs established a committee dedicated to emergency communications and even entered into an agreement with MChS, Emergency Situations Ministry. Trinidad and Tobago In Trinidad and Tobago, The Trinidad and Tobago Amateur Radio Society (T.T.A.R.S), the officially recognized body for amateur radio in Trinidad and Tobago, manages the emergency communications arm of the group often referred to as EmComms. EmComms have, in the past, not only been active in Trinidad and Tobago, but throughout the Caribbean. The Office of Disaster Preparedness Management (ODPM) is actively involved in amateur radio and maintains an active amateur radio station and five repeaters. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom Radio Amateurs Emergency Network (RAYNET) provides the organizational backbone of their amateur radio emergency communications groups along with the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB). It was formed in 1953 in the aftermath of the North Sea flood of that year. United States In the United States, there are two major methods of organizing amateur radio emergency communications: the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), an organization of amateur operators sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL); and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), a standby replacement radio service regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. Operations under the RACES rules requires preregistration with a local civil defense organization, to allow continued operation under Part 97.407 of the FCC regulations in the event the Amateur Radio Service is ever shut down by presidential order. Thus ARES and RACES involvement within the same area are usually intertwined, with many governments requiring membership and service in that locale's ARES organization to allow operations within the Amateur Radio Service as well. Many government Emergency Operations Centers, Red Cross Chapters and National Weather Service facilities have permanent Amateur Radio stations installed for such operations. The ARRL provides extensive documentation on how to conduct emergency radio communications, including its Public Service Communications Manual. Radio clubs independent of the ARRL and ARES also participate in emergency communications activities in some areas, and some non-radio organizations