Starting today and running through Sunday, the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County is hosting a weekend intensive training to train volunteers for the Community Emergency Response Team.
“The training program is a 21-hour course that is FEMA-certified,” Anthony Rodriguez, the Foodbank’s operations and disaster services specialist, told the News-Press Thursday about the training in the Santa Barbara area.
“The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program is a nationally supported, locally implemented initiative that teaches people how to better prepare themselves for hazards that may affect their communities,” according to FEMA. “Since 1993, CERT has trained the public in basic disaster response skills such as team organization, disaster medical operations, fire safety, and light search and rescue. The ability for CERT volunteers to perform these activities frees up professional responders to focus their efforts on more complex, essential, and critical tasks.”
Mr. Rodriguez said CERT training helps community members be able to respond during a disaster.
“The training is recognized throughout the world,” he told the News-Press. “It started in 1985 in L.A.”
Proper training is important to avoid injuring yourself, Mr. Rodriguez noted. “About 100 people were lost in the Mexico earthquake because they weren’t properly trained.”
CERT Training is a nine-unit course covering topics such as disaster preparedness, CERT organization, disaster medical operations, disaster psychology, fire safety and utility controls, a light search and rescue operation, and terrorism.
The training includes how to prepare for mental trauma during a disaster.
“You have to think about mental and physical (aspects) and be prepared in both ways to get through a disaster,” said Mr. Rodriguez.
The CERT training also includes triage work and the first responders’ tagging system for victims: green (walking and wounded), yellow (delayed), red (immediate) and black (deceased).
The training’s final exam is a simulated disaster.
“The simulation is that we will be at the foodbank warehouse doing a check, and giving the trainees a tour and there are people in a different building. And then there is a large earthquake, someone comes screaming, and there are people trapped,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
The training will end with a graduation ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Foodbank’s new warehouse at 80-82 Coromar Drive in Goleta.
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
