Community Emergency Response Team
Guidelines Governing the Use of Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) Organized Within Greenwood County
PURPOSE:
Community Emergency Response Team training is a FEMA program that educates citizens about the hazards they face in their community and trains them in lifesaving skills. If needed following a disaster, these citizen-responders use their training as part of a neighborhood or workplace team to help others when professional responders are overwhelmed or not immediately available. CERT members provide immediate assistance to victims in their area, organize spontaneous volunteers who have not had the training, and collect disaster intelligence that will assist professional responders with prioritization and allocation of resources when they arrive.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAM
CERT promotes a partnering between emergency management and response agencies and the people in the community that they serve. The goal is to train members of neighborhoods and workplaces in basic response skills. Then, CERT teams are formed and maintained as part of the emergency response capability for their area.
If there is a natural or man-made event that overwhelms or delays the community’s professional responders, CERT members can assist others by applying the basic response and organizational skills that they learned during their CERT training. These skills can help save and sustain lives until help arrives. CERT members also can volunteer for special projects or participate in community exercises that improve their preparedness.
RESOURCES & CURRENT PRACTICES
The basic CERT training program is a 20-hour course, typically delivered one evening per week over a 3 -week period. Training sessions cover disaster preparedness, fire suppression, basic disaster medical operations, light search and rescue, disaster psychology, team organization, and a new module on terrorism to educate CERT members about BNCE agents: Biological, Nuclear, Incendiary, Chemical, and Explosive. This module will help CERT members identify situations where these agents may have been used and protective actions that they should take. The training concludes with a disaster simulation in which participants practice skills that they learned throughout the course. Completion of this course also involves enrollment in the online FEMA EMI course 317 and subsequent passing grade on their online test.
If you are interested in becoming part of this volunteer effort contact Pat Patterson, Director of Greenwood County’s Emergency Management Office at: phone – 864.942.8553 or Email – eric@co.greenwood.sc.us