Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is an academy run by the San
Diego Fire Department (SDFD) to train volunteers to serve as first
responders in a major calamity where the normal emergency services are
overwhelmed. The CERT concept arose in Los Angeles following the 1994
Northridge earthquake, where a great many people wanted to help out but
were not allowed to help because they were untrained. The same happened
last October in San Diego, and CERT is being instituted here in San Diego
as a response to that disaster.
CERT-trained individuals receive eight weeks of instruction (about four
hours per week) in a variety of disaster preparedness areas including:
introductory firefighting, basic first aid and triage, light search and
rescue, and rudimentary disaster psychology. Persons who complete the
eight weeks of training are certified by the SDFD and the Police
Department to assist as emergency responders in major crises (and they are
awarded the coveted green helmet and vest!).
It is important to understand that CERT personnel are not “activated” in
anything but a large-scale crises. They only take action in a major
disaster where the city’s response teams are unavailable (possibly because
they are tasked elsewhere, or because impassable roads make response
impossible, or because communications are lost and the city services
cannot be contacted). CERT teams are trained to act as first responders
for the initial 72 hours of a region-wide crisis-response situation such
as a major fire, a major earthquake, or a terrorist attack. If the
situation is not so wide spread and city emergency services are available,
then these people must be called upon and used. This is because the
professional responders are vastly better trained than are CERT personnel,
and CERT members are only authorized to take action when the professionals
are expected to be unavailable for an extended period.
The first SDFD-run CERT academy was recently completed, and it included
many homeowners in Scripps Ranch. The second CERT academy is currently in
progress, and its first session was attended by some 39 Tierrasantans,
including three members of the Tierrasanta Community Council. This is a
tremendous response by the community; hopefully many more will sign up for
the next academy, when classes begin in July. [Click
HERE for printable sign-up form.]
But the eight weeks of training is only the start. Once trained, and once
certified by the City as an authorized first responder in a regional
crisis, the neighborhood CERT personnel then must organize themselves into
functioning teams who know where to meet and how to act, even when the
phones are not working. This aspect of CERT is not addressed by the SDFD;
instead, local organizing is left to the citizenry to work on.
