About Santa Cruz County CERT Council
Santa Cruz County CERT Council was born out of a need to coordinate the old CERT Program across the County as a recognizable group of trained individuals with the same newer CERT Training and a minimal set of credentials and safety clothing. The need was for information on how different programs were doing training and running there teams.
The Council became official in late 2004 as a sub-committee of the Santa Cruz County Emergency Management Council (SCC-EMC) and as part of the sub-committee of Citizen Corps as other programs started up, still part of the SCC-EMC.
Since the Santa Cruz County CERT Council formed to be an information broker for CERT for the whole Operational Area (Santa Cruz County), this website was formed to aid in that process. Below will provide additional information on how the task will evolve.
Disaster Season:
From history we learn Santa Cruz County has a two fold Disaster Season. The Critical Season is mostly December through March, while the Extended Season is August to June (school season). This time period is when Flooding, Mud/Land Slides, Wild-land Fires, Field Search & Rescue, Earthquakes, Large Hazmat, and Tsunamis (small normal business incidents are excluded) are more likely to occur. This does not rule out disasters during the rest of the year or rare disasters. These disasters indeed are the basis of scenarios that we need to think about for training a flexible, registered group of volunteers called CERT - Community Emergency Response Teams.
Responsibilities:
There are four fold responsibilities that build upon each other to make a successful CERT Program. These are from the top down: the CERT Council, the CERT Program Coordinator, the CERT Neighborhood Captain/Leader, and the CERT Trained Individual. Below is a suggestive list of responsibilities of each group.
The CERT Council’s responsibilities (to name a few):
- Promotion of CERT Area Programs and Neighborhood organizations
- Promotion of County wide Training (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced)
- Disbursement and Acquisition of Gants and Other resources
- Seeking and Promoting outside training and cooperation
- Standardizing all aspects of CERT (esp. within County for equal recognition)
- Securing DSW IDs per some plan of need (important for out of neighborhood work)
- Informing all interested parties of news and changes by email, website, newsletter
- Maintaining and Reporting statistics and Master List (database) of trainees, training and experience; and classes presented to date
- Report to the Emergency Management Council progress and statistics and goals
- Other Tasks as needed to make CERT a useful resource
The Area CERT Program Coordinator’s responsibilities (to name a few):
- Provide Basic CERT Training
- Promote and Assist Neighborhood organization
- Promote and/or provide additional Training
- Keep Records of trainees, training, and experience
- Provide copies of Records and Statistics to CERT Council
- Provide/Receive input/requests to and from CERT Council
- Explore uses for CERT before/during/after disasters
- Other Tasks as needed to make CERT a useful resource
The CERT Neighborhood Captain/Leader’s responsibilities (to name a few):
- Poll and assist neighborhood’s participants for readiness
- Promote additional Training and Participation beyond the Neighborhood
- Promote additional preparedness and resources
- Promote practice/drills
- Report additional needs to Area Program Coordinator
- Report any Training and Exercises performed to Area Program Coordinator
- Recruit additional participants and get help them get trained
The CERT Trained Individual’s responsibilities (to name a few):
- Ideally join or form a neighborhood CERT group
- Be ready to help your neighborhood to the limits of your training
- Make your Area Program Coordinator aware of you and your location
- Participate in refresher/drill or additional training
- Be willing to chose additional tasks as needed
