The Long Beach Fire Department has announced an expansion of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program by adding civilian-led neighborhood teams and offering refresher courses for graduates.
Around 5,000 people have completed the 22-hour CERT training program being taught how to help their families, co-workers and neighbors in the event of a natural disaster or other major incident. CERT graduates also learn how to be self-sustainable for up to several days after an event.
As a part of the outreach process, the Fire Department is encouraging previous CERT graduates to attend quarterly skill refresher courses. It is also encouraging regular citizens to take the six-week CERT training course and become part of a neighborhood team, which will hopefully increase the program’s effectiveness.
With the new Neighborhood CERT teams being implemented, it also gives public safety officials the ability to prioritize where to conduct rescue efforts since some places may take days to reach. These new teams would serve as what the Department calls “a force multiplier,” groups of prepared people that can go around their own neighborhoods after a disaster to check on residents and provide information and assistance to authorities. The CERT teams and graduates, by working with the Fire Department, would also receive the benefit of ongoing and improving communication between the two.
“In case of a major disaster, our residents will be need to be self-reliant while our first responders will be dealing with high priority emergencies,” Mayor Bob Foster said. “Expanding our already successful CERT program will enable teams of trained people to augment public safety officials and to start providing immediate services in their own neighborhoods.”
For more information on upcoming courses, or to register for CERT training, visit www.longbeach.gov/cert or contact Will Nash, CERT coordinator, at [email protected].
[Ed. note: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed the refresher courses as being weekly. They will be offered quarterly.]