Why CERT is Dead or Dying!
Anthony Hernandez
Mission Specialist I Volunteer at Scobee Education Center (NASA-STEM)
The Mexico City earthquake struck the City on the morning of September at 7:17 am (CST) with a magnitude of 8.0. The event caused severe damage and the deaths of about 5,000 people. Not only did the devastating damage buildings, bridges, and roads where first responders could not get through to help earthquake victims. Communications for public safety towers went down, causing gaps in radio communications for police, fire, and EMS. The only radio communications were the amateur radio operators, who could transmit vital information. Since help was not coming to aid the victims, citizens of Mexico City sprung into action by removing building rubles by hand, and more volunteers showed up with heavy construction equipment to help remove large parts of collapsed buildings and clear roads so police, fire, and EMS could get through. During and after this earthquake, 100 citizens lost their lives.
How did the (CERT) Community Emergency Response Team first start? Officials from the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) went to Mexico City to study how the City was able to save so many lives from the destruction of one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike the City, and only lost the lives of 100 volunteers, people who were not trained but wanted to help. The LAFD had a concept to develop and train civilians on safely rescuing victims
In 1994, the Northridge earthquake occurred with a magnitude of 6.7 on January 17th, at 4:30 am (PST) in the San Fernando Valley area in the City of Los Angeles. The Northridge Earthquake caused more than 60 deaths, destroyed 50,000 housing units, damaged and destroyed about 1,500 buildings, and started about 500 fires. Twenty thousand citizens were displaced, and more than 9,000 people were injured; many were helpless because the LAFD had their hands full of emergencies/ What helped was the CERT volunteer personnel who lived in many of these damaged neighborhoods, were trained and responded to help the community, there were no CERT volunteers injured or killed of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. The LAFD CERT program was so successful that even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was so impressed that FEMA nationalized the CERT program to help communities CERT teams across the United States. I was trained as a CERT member and a CERT instructor. After completing over 200 FEMA online and in-class courses, the FEMA/ Emergency Management Institute (EMI) invited me to train and take the CERT instructor and management courses.
FEMA was issuing grant money to every City and county that wanted to start the local CERT teams. The funding came through the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG), twelve county regions to finance training and equipment
In our CERT program, instructors added radio communications and volunteers to get the license by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Technician Class license. Then, I said training of FRS radios and flight safety ground operations to assist in the landing and takeoff of medical helicopters. As the training progresses, more CERT training in comprehensive area damage assessment
The CERT program is dead primarily in the City of San Antonio and County of Bexar. It was a great concept, but refusing to continue funding and promote volunteers to help first responders when there comes a day when the fighter fighters and EMTs will be overwhelmedThe Mexico City earthquake struck the City in the morning of September, at 7:17 am (CST) with a magnitude of 8.0. The event caused severe damage and the deaths of about 5,000 people. Not only did the devastating damage buildings, bridges, and roads where first responders were not able to get through to help earthquake victims. Communications for public safety towers went down, causing gaps in radio communications for police, fire, and EMS. The only radio communications were the amateur radio operators that were able to transmit vital information. Since help was not coming to aid the victims, citizens of Mexico City sprung into action by removing building ruble by hand and more volunteers showed up with heavy construction equipment to help remove large parts of collapse building and clear roads, so police, fire and EMS can get through. During and after this earthquake, 100 citizens lost their lives.
How did the (CERT) Community Emergency Response Team first start? Officials from the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) went to Mexico City to study how the City was able to save so many lives from the destruction of one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike the City, and only lost the lives of 100 volunteers, people who were not trained but wanted to help. The LAFD had a concept to develop and train civilians on safely rescuing victims from an earthquake. LAFD included medical and triage, patient transport, cutting off utilizes, search patterns, communications, documentation, how to handle emergencies until professional help arrives, and how to report information to firefighters. CERT was born from the idea of the LAFD to train civilians on how to operate safely and handle emergencies until professional personnel arrive and take over.
In 1994, the Northridge earthquake occurred with a magnitude of 6.7 on January 17th, at 4:30 am (PST) in the San Fernando Valley area in the City of Los Angeles. The Northridge Earthquake caused more than 60 deaths, destroyed 50,000 housing units, damaged and destroyed about 1,500 buildings, and started about 500 fires. Twenty thousand citizens were displaced, and more than 9,000 people were injured; many were helpless because the LAFD had their hands full of emergencies/ What helped was the CERT volunteer personnel who lived in many of these damaged neighborhoods, were trained and responded to help the community, there were no CERT volunteers injured or killed of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. The LAFD CERT program was so successful that even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was so impressed that FEMA nationalized the CERT program to help communities CERT teams across the United States. I was trained as a CERT member and a CERT instructor. After completing over 200 FEMA online and in-class courses, the FEMA/ Emergency Management Institute (EMI) invited me to train and take the CERT instructor and management courses.
FEMA was issuing grant money to every City and county that wanted to start the local CERT teams. The funding came through the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG), twelve county regions to finance training and equipment, like supplies and trailers to train and respond. The City of San Antonio, under the San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD), has a city CERT, where we train at the City/ County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the SAFD Fire Academy. We had the best facilities to train at, and officials from foreign countries would come to our city to tour the SAFD Fire Academy and EOC.
In our CERT program, instructors added radio communications and volunteers to get a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the Technician Class license. Then, training of FRS radios and flight safety ground operations to assist in the landing and takeoff of medical helicopters. As the training progresses, more CERT training in comprehensive area damage assessment and required FEMA documentation would help local officials calculate the cost of damage and be able to ascertain more funding. As time passed, the City started to move away from having a CERT program because federal funding was only for 4 to 5 years; this happens when local officials stop receiving federal dollars and decide not to continue operating the CERT program.
The City CERT program was transferred to Bexar County, and the county limited the funds from AACOG and Bexar County. The ill management and failures of Bexar County not treating or respecting CERT members and not allowing CERT to be used by other local governments and counties when the funds were given to AACOG and Bexar County were supposed to manage the equipment, reducing opportunities for CERT volunteers to train and respond to communities in need of help, majority of members left, and the CERT program fell in the third most populated county in Texas and the 7th largest City in the U.S., San Antonio. There are members still active in teaching and responding to the requests of other communities outside the City of San Antonio Metro Area and Bexar County. So much training, time, resources, and volunteer time is now lost forever. The CERT program is dead primarily in the City of San Antonio, County of Bexar, and many other communities. It was a great concept, but refusing to continue funding and promote volunteers to help first responders when there comes a day when the fighter fighters and EMTs will be overwhelmed!
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