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Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is another active program in our community with several communities getting actively organized. CERT educates people about disaster preparedness and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and disaster medical operations. Using their training, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event and can take a more active role in preparing their community.
Interested in CERT?
Contact us at 850-983-5360 or visit santarosacc.com
Program Implementation
Santa Rosa County is proud to announce the implementation of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. CERT is an official emergency preparedness program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
CERTs are formed by members of a neighborhood or workplace who wants to be better prepared for the hazards that threaten their communities. The course benefits anyone who takes it by being better prepared to respond to and cope with the aftermath of natural or man-made disasters.
Best Source of Help
The best source of help in an emergency or disaster is the paid or volunteer professional. But, if they are not available due to high demand, CERT members can help. CERTs are not intended to replace a community’s response capability, but rather, to service as an important supplement to it.
Volunteer Resource
By sponsoring CERT, Santa Rosa County is creating a volunteer resource that is part of the community’s operational capability following a disaster. The SRC CERT program will develop training standards for CERT personnel and protocols for their activation and use.
- CERT volunteers must keep their safety in mind as their first priority.
- CERT volunteers must know their capabilities and the limitations of their training and equipment and work within those limitations.
As each CERT is organized and trained and in accordance with standard operating procedures developed by the sponsoring agency, its members select a team leader and an alternate and identify a meeting location, or staging area, to be used in the event of a disaster.
Staging Area
The staging area is where the fire department and other services will interact with CERTs. Having a centralized contact point makes it possible to communicate damage assessments and allocate volunteer resources more effectively.
Assessing Needs
Damage from disasters may vary considerably from one location to another. In an actual disaster, CERTs are deployed progressively and as needs dictate. Members are taught to assess their own needs and those of their immediate environment first.
CERT members who encounter no need in their immediate area then reports to their staging area, where they take on assigned roles based on overall area needs. Members who find themselves in a heavily affected location send runners to staging areas to get help from available resources. Ham and CB radio links also may be used to increase communication capabilities and coordination.
First-Response Capability
The CERT program can provide an effective first-response capability. Acting as individuals first, then later as members of teams, trained CERT volunteers can fan out within their assigned areas, extinguishing small fires, turning off natural gas inlets to damaged homes, performing light search and rescue, and rendering basic medical treatment. Trained volunteers also offer an important potential workforce to service organizations in non hazardous functions such as shelter support, crowd control, and evacuation.
Training Levels
CERT volunteers always work only within their training levels!
Topics
CERT is divided into 9 units covering the following topics:
- Unit 1 Disaster Preparedness
- Unit 2 Fire Safety
- Unit 3 Disaster Medical Operations - Part 1
- Unit 4 Disaster Medical Operations - Part 2
- Unit 5 Light Search and Rescue
- Unit 6 CERT Organization
- Unit 7 Disaster Psychology
- Unit 8 Terrorism and CERT
- Unit 9 Course Review and Disaster Simulation
Course Completion
Upon completion of the course, you will receive a certificate and may receive identification that will identify you as an emergency response team member during disaster response.
Training
Training in a disaster response should not be a one-time event. Awareness, commitment, and skills must be reinforced through follow-up training and repeated practice to maintain the edge necessary for effective response in the face of disaster.