We are all in danger from natural disasters right now:
wildfires, earthquakes, floods
– California is subject to them all. Perhaps equally are local
or individual disasters, things like transportation incidents
stemming from freeway or railroad accidents.
We are all in danger from natural disasters right now: wildfires, earthquakes, floods – California is subject to them all. Perhaps equally are local or individual disasters, things like transportation incidents stemming from freeway or railroad accidents. But while most of us tend to ignore the existence of these dangers, a dedicated group of volunteers prepares to act whenever a disaster strikes.
When a disaster occurs, professional responders like police, fire fighters and paramedics are frequently overwhelmed. This is when trained volunteers can become crucial in meeting the community’s needs, minimizing the effects of disaster and helping to facilitate recovery.
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a program supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency since 1994. Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Hollister all have volunteer teams who have received training to recognize and respond to emergencies.
Professional responders and experienced volunteers teach participants through regularly scheduled classes. In Morgan Hill, monthly sessions are held at the police station. Topics covered include:
– Disaster preparedness
– Fire safety
– Disaster medical operations
– Light search and rescue
– Disaster psychology
– Terrorism
A major disaster could cut a city off from outside help for days or even weeks. People who have completed this training will be able to ensure their own family’s survival, even if they don’t become community volunteers. In the words of Roger Winters, who has been a Morgan Hill volunteer since 1998, “Every family which is prepared is one less family we will have to help.”
Even without a major natural disaster, Morgan Hill CERT has provided valuable service to the community by supplementing the overworked professional staff. It has been used for such activities as:
– Providing event monitoring and first aid at city events
– Training other residents in disaster preparedness
– Responding to local disasters such as the major downtown flooding in 2008 and the Verizon telephone outage last year
– Controlling the Calstar helicopter landing zones at special events
– Assisting in traffic control at city functions
Although as many as 500 residents have received CERT training, only a small portion are active at any particular time. Thus, more volunteers are always needed. Qualifications to become a volunteer include being at least 18 years old, living in our immediate area, taking the free 25-hour certification course, attending meetings and maintaining the skills learned during training.
Gail Adair has been a participant since 2008, and currently she is engaged in outreach to the community, seeking more residents who would like to become involved in this important work. Among the groups she has addressed recently are residents of the Hacienda Valley Mobile Home Estates, students at El Toro School and members of Advent Lutheran Church. Other ways of gaining more visibility for CERT have included booths at the Mushroom Mardi Gras, Taste of Morgan Hill, Morgan Hill Volunteer Faire and a city health fair. Anyone who would like to have a speaker address a group to which he or she belongs should contact Jennifer Ponce, Morgan Hill’s office of emergency services coordinator at (408) 776-7310 or [email protected].
Other South County communities are also using trained citizen volunteers to prepare for emergencies. The City of Gilroy has a CERT team allied with the Gilroy Fire Department; they train regularly with their Morgan Hill counterparts. For more information, visit www.gilroycert.com. For Hollister residents, there is a similar group known as the Volunteer Response Team operating out of the San Benito County Public Health Division. For more information, call Efren Gomez at (831) 637-5367.
