National Capital Region Community Emergence Response Team (CERT) Members Descend on Northern Virginia On June 29th and 30th the National Capital Region held the third annual Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) confer-ence hosted by Fairfax County, Virginia, CERT and Northern Virginia Community College. This event was previously hosted by Montgomery County CERT in 2011 and Georgetown Univer-sity CERT in 2012. Attendees from CERT teams from the Washington, D.C. metro-politan region gathered at Northern Virginia Community Col-lege for a full day of training seminars, idea sharing and cama-raderie. Sessions included: Stress and Trauma Management for first responders, Search and Rescue Operations, Wilderness First Aid, Navigating Your Safety in a Disaster, Pet First Aid, Dis-aster Communications, Hazmat Awareness for First Respond-ers, Traffic and Crowd Management Skills, WMD/IED Threat Picture, Deafness and Hearing Loss – The Communication Chal-lenges for Emergency Responders and Planning and Delivering a Local Exercise. All sessions were led by subject matter experts and included time for questions and group discussion. Speakers graciously donated their time and expertise to sharpen the skill sets for CERT volunteers. Dante Randazzo of FEMA served as the Keynote speaker and Meagan van Harte from the New York City office of Emergency Management was the Featured speaker. Chad McWreath kept the crowd engaged as the event’s Master of Ceremonies. The day closed with Citizen Corps program manager for the Virginia Department of Emergency Manage-ment Linda Rubin’s comments of thanks, encouragement and appreciation for CERT volunteer. CERT training is known for combining classroom training and practical application and CERT-Con 2013 was no exception. The conference was capped by a full day exercise at the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue training facility in Lorton, VA under the guidance of Fair-fax’s own Stephen Willey and Mike Forgy Inter-jurisdictional teams worked together rescuing victims from a simulated earth-quake lead by Incident Com-mander James Weikert of the Fairfax County CERT team. This exercise gave the visiting teams an opportunity to work togeth-er in this large scale exercise that involved over 200 rescuers and victims“The teams worked well together, which is im-portant because in a real-world disaster that is exactly what teams will have to do” Weikert stated, “the exercise accom-plished the teamwork we had hoped for.” Not only was this an exercise for the National Capital Region CERT teams, but also made training history when Fairfax Coun-ty Fire and Rescue Department, Training Division brought in resources from Battalion 7 to do a Incident Command change from CERT to First Responder. In a “Real World” situation this is how it would work. Battalion 7, Incident Commander, Capt. Timothy Barb, stat-ed, “CERT is a resource for First Responders as well as neigh-borhood residents. Having a team of people that have been trained in the Incident Command System (ICS) and how to do things safely are a great plus in saving lives during a disaster. Having the Command Post and Medical area set up prior to our arrival with rescue operations under way was a key com-ponent to the success of the exercise. Very quickly, I was able to deploy my resources where needed and begin trans-porting the injured (actor/victims). In a large wide spread disaster, CERT will be a serious asset to our First Responder force.” No event can be successful without dedicated leadership and Fairfax County’s CERT program managers Jeffrey Katz and Dana Powers led a volunteer group through the confer-ence planning process. “We were proud of our volunteers, they worked hard, planned well and their efforts culminated with a successful conference,” according to Jeffrey Katz, “our volunteers worked hard.” “In the beginning planning a two day conference for 200 attendees and guests seemed like a big task,” Dana Powers offered, “but when we divided up the duties our CERT con-ference volunteers took charge and accomplished each task with enthusiasm.” Additional sponsors of CERT CON 2013 are Virginia Depart-ment of Emergency Management, Prince George’s County CERT and Anne Arundel County CERT. CERT CON 2014 will be hosted by Prince George’s County CERT with dates still to be determined. For more information about Fairfax County CERT and how to get involved visit: fairfaxcounty.gov/oem/citizencorps/cert.htm For additional information, video or photos of this event please contact: [email protected]
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:23:03 +0000
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