SONOMA COUNTY CERT ASSOCIATION

Promoting Community Emergency Response Team training
in Sonoma County Communities

Againt a background of scorching temperatures and lightning storms to the north and east of Sonoma County that ignited hundreds of wildfires, on June 21, the Sonoma County CERT Challenge II took place at the Santa Rosa Fire Training Tower.

The CERT teams, Challenge staff, instructors, and volunteers who came together were faced not only with air temperatures topping 99 degrees, but also the heat radiating off the concrete and blacktop - and the fires intentionally set as part of the fire suppression exercise. Because personal and team safety is a hallmark of CERT training, teams were geared up in their vests, hats, and gloves, not to speak of long pants and sturdy shoes! (I personally don't know how firefighters stand it at all, in their full turnout gear.) The only cool place to be found was inside ice chests or wrapped around the outside of a bottle of cold water.

The Challenges are designed to provide an opportunity to practice thinking and skills learned in the basic CERT classes, and to learn new skills that CERTs can put to use in a disaster. This year, the stations were:

Hazards: Size up outside and inside; and search for victims inside, one of whom was laying on the other side of a live electrical wire. A few CERTs were 'killed' when they rushed to the victim instead of first shutting off the electricity at the circuit breaker panel.

Cribbing: How would you go about lifting up a big concrete slab without crushing trapped victims or your team members?

Disaster Communications: While some CERTS are already licensed to operate ham radios, not everyone is. This exercise taught the basics of disaster communications protocol using FRS radios (walkie talkies).

Fire: Last year, we put fire out with branches. This year CERTs used soil, shovels and blankets.

Kids and Pets: While not everyone likes kids or pets, in a disaster, we don't have a choice: kids and pets will need to be dealt with. K&P gave CERTs an introduction to this potentially complex part of working a disaster response.

Multi-Casualty Injury (MCI): Triage practice on 'victims' from a paratransit bus 'accident'.

In the spirit of being flexible in response to changing conditions, two significant changes happened as the day advanced: As teams were finishing the individual sims and debriefings a little faster than we'd scheduled them for, the IC and timekeeper adjusted the schedule, making the uncomfortably hot day go a little faster. The second change came when the triage exercise lost the Bennett Valley firefighters--they were on a strike team that was mobilized to fight one of the wildfires. In stepped SCCERTA committee member Zach Hammil, who seamlessly picked up and ran triage for the rest of the day.

CERT Challenge II Slideshow
Rodger Doncaster, head of Disaster Services for the American Red Cross Sonoma & Mendocino Counties chapter, took still photographs throughout the day. Here is a slideshow of just some of them. If you'd like a CD with all the photos (1.2 MB), please let us know.

Direct link to slideshow on Picasaweb

Instructor and Team Evaluations & Comments (PDF)

The Sonoma County CERT Association thanks all the instructors, the Bennett Valley, Healdsburg, and Sebastopol fire departments, safety officer, and observers for helping make the day informative and upbeat. We also thank Heather Walters for the portable bathrooms, and the American Red Cross for water, snacks, and sunscreen.