This month’s Hometown Hero is the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). We spoke with Danielle Murdaugh the Team Leader of the program about what CERT is and how to get involved.
KC Campbell, Public Information Officer of Colleton County Fire Rescue, explains CERT. “Fire Rescue has a division, and the division inside Fire Rescue is emergency management. And there’s four key areas that emergency management does for the county; preparation, mitigation, response, and recovery. CERT is another division under emergency management. They’re a team of civilian responders that are designed to supplement the first responders in the event of a disaster. Typically, 48 hours or so after an incident has occurred, we would bring in the CERT team once we had a grasp on the situation and knew that it was safe.”
Murdaugh says, “CERT is an assembly of consistent volunteers that are trained in disaster aware preparedness and basic disaster response skills such as fire safety, light Search and Rescue Team and Disaster Medical operations. Team members are trained to accomplish their assigned task. For example, after a disaster, CERT members may be assigned to go and look at homes. They are trained to know how to assess homes and mark the status of the home after a disaster. This lets first responders know the home is clear of occupants. They’re trained to go in the field and look, they always tell team members that first and foremost, before anything is done, that their neighborhood is top priority for making sure they’re safe. We tell them that, because it’s a community emergency response team (CERT), they’re responsible of their community. We look for them to be part of their community, to make them aware, to educate them of how to prepare for an emergency.”
Campbell adds, “CERT is really designed, more or less to supplement our operations. We do rely very heavily on them. In the EOC (Emergency Operations Center), when we’re activated, there’s a lot of people involved, but we all can’t be everywhere at once. We are a small department, and we have a very large county, so if we have mass impacts and substantial damage everywhere, we’re going to pair CERT team members up with fire rescue folks to go out together as a team. They may be left in a staging area where that they can manage food for the responders. We have points of distribution, where we can distribute food and water.”
CERT is under different organizations throughout the state. Campbell explains, “Sometimes they are free standing, for instance, our neighbors across the river in Charleston, they have a CERT team that falls under emergency management, but their emergency management is self-standing, it’s not attached to the fire department or attached to the police department. We appreciate their help during public events. Just the smallest thing, answering the phones, it’s very helpful to have that extra help. Disaster response is a community function, it impacts the entire community. Why sit at home, join the CERT team. We rely very heavily on volunteers. We’re a big rural county. We can’t have paid personnel everywhere. When you have a volunteer, it also gives you pride in your community. You will be a part of something bigger, in the outskirts of the county, the upper west side and the eastern side of the county like Cottageville or Lodge.” Having people there with the CERT team really helps.”
Community Outreach is another aspect of CERT, Murdaugh explains, “ We just did Rice Festival. We passed out over 1,500 packages of information to the public, just as community outreach. We do Senior Prep, we do the Trunk or Treat, all the CERT members go out and help with the events. It’s just your average person out there showing that they can make a difference. You don’t have to have special talents. You don’t have to do this that it only takes your stepping up to try to make that difference in your community.”
There are training requirements to be on the CERT team. CERT training is once a month for an hour and then there’s some online portions of training that are required. CERT is a national program that has guidelines to follow. There is a class in the morning and one in evening to find one that fits your schedule. CERT typically is made up of retirees, but anyone is welcome. Campbell says, “Maybe they don’t want to do firefighting, maybe they don’t want to do medical, maybe they just want to simply answer a phone or go into their community and organize something at one of the community centers. Information during a storm is the most important thing, and if we can get that information out that is very important. We also have a large shut-in crowd in college, and they’re hard to find so but having these people in you’re in your community very valuable.”
If you have any questions of want to participate in the CERT Team Contact Colleton County Fire Rescue.
