Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Greetings, here is the news: Team Meeting— Sunday, 10 June at Carmel Valley Recreation Center, 1-4pm. The website originally had a morning start, we decided to move it to afternoon, so please update calendars accordingly. I will now take RSVP for this. It looks like there is a fair amount of interest from Battalion 7, and we might have to limit our numbers depending on the number of instructors I can line up. So, email me if you want to go, sooner is better. I should have a pretty comprehensive outline for this drill by next week. My plan is still in for approval, so it's a bit early to say much. As much as we can, we're going to emphasize repetitive practice of fundamental rescue skills, including the ever popular knot-tying. Team Hours— I'll start accepting team hours for May now, but the deadline is a week from this Thursday. As always, if you new people have any questions about this, drop me a note. All for this week, I'll probably hold off on the Battalion news until about Noon in case I get the drill plan approved so I can publish some details. Stay Safe. -Steve

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good afternoon, here is the News: Team Meeting— Sunday, 10 June at Carmel Valley Recreation Center, 1-4pm. The website originally had a morning start, we decided to move it to afternoon, so please update calendars accordingly. More on this in the Battalion whenever I get to it. Yes, there will be RSVP for this, but not now please, I'll ask for it towards the end of the month. May FRS Radio Drill—Well, that was a bit disappointing. For me anyway, I think our resident expert (Mike) was not at all surprised. We got lousy and intermittent reception pretty much everywhere, whereas the last two years we did pretty well. I guess that puts FRS in its place, good for coordinating a search in a smaller area, not much more. Still, I like this drill because everybody gets a chance to key up the radio and use it. The practice will come in handy someday. That's all for this week, questions, comments, you know where to find me. -Steve

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News: Radio Drill tomorrow night—There is still time to get in on this, but I need to hear from you by 18:00 TONIGHT. I will start sending out call signs this afternoon. If you think you are signed up for this drill, and you don't hear from me by 19:00 tonight, then I don't have you on the list, shoot me a reply and we'll get you set up. Those of you who are participating, charge the thing, of get fresh batteries, whatever you do. Do it now. I'll wait. If you are not really familiar with your radio, now is also a good time to pull out the manual and get it tuned to Channel 7. If you bought two radios, find a friend (or a bitter enemy would work as well I guess) to do a radio check with you. Here is the rest of the detail, largely repeated for last week: You will need an FRS/GMRS radio for this drill, and something to write on/with. We will use Channel 7(FRS). Promptly at 5:30, I will make the following announcement from the rally point (near the Recreation Center on New Salem, just east of Camino Ruiz): Attention. Attention. Attention. This is Mira Mesa net control, calling the Mira Mesa Community Emergency Response Team. This is a drill. This is a directed net. Please make no transmissions unless called upon by the net control station. Emergency traffic may break into this net at anytime and will be acknowledged by net control. I will ask for check-ins of CERT members by area. When you check in give your call sign, the street you are on and nearest cross street. Make a note of any check ins you hear from your location and bring your list to the team rally point. I will then ask for responses by quadrant as follows: Quadrant 1: North of Mira Mesa Blvd, East of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 2: North of Mira Mesa Blvd, West of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 3: South of Mira Mesa Blvd, East of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 4: South of Mira Mesa Blvd, West of Camino Ruiz I will acknowledge your transmission by call sign. Please make a note of all other call signs you hear from your location (but do not contact them). After you have made contact, proceed to the rally point. Keep your radio on, and report any "new" transmissions you heard on your way in until you get to the rally point. You can record them of course, but only if it is safe to do so (pull over or stop at a light). Do NOT, under any circumstances, operate your radio while driving. It may or may not be technically illegal, I don't really care. If you don't hear my announcement, but you hear someone else's response, you can request a relay from them. The transmission sequence is: "[call sign] to [call sign relay] request relay to net control" "[call sign relay] to [call sign] acknowledged" "[call sign relay] to [net control] I have contact with [call sign]" "[net control] acknowledged" If you can't hear my announcement, request only one relay, don't request a relay from everyone you can hear (but do record them). Do not communicate with another station unless you need to make a relay. If, after 5 minutes, you have not heard from anyone, drive half the distance to the rally point (or as far as makes sense to you), pull over and try again. You may need to get out of your car, FRS inside a vehicle can be iffy. When we all get to the rally point, we will plot locations on a map of Mira Mesa and see how we did. Usually coverage is pretty good, with a few holes we know about. June Meeting/exercise—In June the 10th falls on a Sunday. We are planning a joint Battalion 5 rescue exercise. This will count as a Team Meeting. We will probably be at the Carmel Valley Recreation Center. It's a bit closer to our Battalion's geographic center. This will be straight-up rescue techniques, carries and drags, log roll into the litter, loading a backboard etc. We'll also practice knot tying. If you have back/leg problems, plan to come anyway, and declare your issue at the start of the drill, we will work within what you think you can do. Knot-tying will start from the very basic, so if you don't have much practice there, this is a good one for you. No time set yet, I need to work this out with Team Carmel Valley, and I'm a bit behind on some things. I'm shooting for the afternoon after lunch, plan on two hours. All for this week. Questions, comments, reply to this email, I'm right here. -Steve

Mira Mesa Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News: Volunteer Hours for April—Please send me any volunteer hours you logged in April by Noon tomorrow. Hours can include Team Meetings, Continuing Education classes, or any hours you spent on CERT activities (the bone marrow drive last Saturday counts as volunteer hours). Please let me know if you have any questions about reporting your hours. Scripps Ranch Fair—Scripps Ranch is having a Community Fair this Sunday, 6 May, 12:00-5:30pm: http://www.scrippsranch.org/events/community-fair.html The Scripps Ranch Team will have a booth at the event where they will do some interactive demonstrations, starting at 1:00pm. This sort of thing really needs a few CERT people to really work, as the booth has to be staffed while the demos are running. If you would like to see the Fair and can put in about 2 hours at the booth, please let me know by reply email, the Scripps guys would love to have you. Radio Drill 9 May— RSVP to me for this radio drill. I will take your RSVP up until 6:00 Tuesday night. You will get an email from me with your call sign. If you don't want to participate in the actual drill, but would like to observe, just show up at the rally point at 5:30pm. Here is the rest of the detail, borrowed largely from last year's drill: You will need an FRS radio for this drill, and something to write on/with. We will use Channel 7. Before the drill, please be sure your radio has a full charge and is tuned to Channel 7. If you bought two radios, and have not used FRS before, you might want to practice with someone else. There is a brief delay between keying the radio for transmission and actual transmission, so if you start talking immediately, you will get cutoff. This takes some getting used to. Promptly at 5:30, I will make the following announcement from the rally point (near the Recreation Center on New Salem, just east of Camino Ruiz): Attention. Attention. Attention. This is Mira Mesa net control, calling the Mira Mesa Community Emergency Response Team. This is a drill. This is a directed net. Please make no transmissions unless called upon by the net control station. Emergency traffic may break into this net at anytime and will be acknowledged by net control. I will ask for check-ins of CERT members by area. When you check in give your call sign, the street you are on and nearest cross street. Make a note of any check ins you hear from your location and bring your list to the team rally point. I will then ask for responses by quadrant as follows: Quadrant 1: North of Mira Mesa Blvd, East of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 2: North of Mira Mesa Blvd, West of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 3: South of Mira Mesa Blvd, East of Camino Ruiz Quadrant 4: South of Mira Mesa Blvd, West of Camino Ruiz I will acknowledge your transmission by call sign. Please make a note of all other call signs you hear from your location (but do not contact them). After you have made contact, proceed to the rally point. Keep your radio on, and report any "new" transmissions you heard on your way in until you get to the rally point. You can record them of course, but only if it is safe to do so (pull over or stop at a light). Do NOT, under any circumstances, operate your radio while driving. It may or may not be technically illegal, I don't really care. If you don't hear my announcement, but you hear someone else's response, you can request a relay from them. The transmission sequence is: "[call sign] to [call sign relay] request relay to net control" "[call sign relay] to [call sign] acknowledged" "[call sign relay] to [net control] I have contact with [call sign]" "[net control] acknowledged" If you can't hear my announcement, request only one relay, don't request a relay from everyone you can hear (but do record them). Do not communicate with another station unless you need to make a relay. If, after 5 minutes, you have not heard from anyone, drive half the distance to the rally point (or as far as makes sense to you), pull over and try again. You may need to get out of your car, FRS inside a vehicle can be iffy. When we all get to the rally point, we will plot locations on a map of Mira Mesa and see how we did. Usually coverage is pretty good, with a few holes we know about.

CERT iPhone/iPad App Updated

CERT iPhone/iPad App Updated:
Most of you have heard me discuss how cool it is to have CERT materials in my iPhone, ready to refer to at any time.  The author of the CERT Guide has produced an update that takes advantage of the bigger screen of the iPad., fixed outdated links and some assorted bug fixes.  Be sure to download your update.
“This application is an essential resource for CERT members that may be used as a reference to refresh the training that they have completed. This application is also a critical field operations guide to support CERT members during actual disaster activations.”

“This reference contains quick guides for all topics covered with the Community Emergency Response Team curriculum, checklists, emergency procedures, the complete CERT course student manuals and vlsuals (slides), and access to emergency radio streams throughout the United States and internationally. With internet access on the IPhone or IPod Touch you can access Police, Fire, and EMT emergency radio traffic which can be used as an important utility following a major disaster.”

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Greetings, here is the News: Marrow Drive—If you believe you are signed up to help this Saturday, and you did NOT get an email update from Carie yesterday afternoon, please notify me immediately. Those of you who did get it need to reply and indicate your shift preference. That's the only way to do it, if you sent email to Carie before you got the update, or sent it to me, it will not be recorded. Thanks, thanks THANKS again to everyone who was able to step up to this, I appreciate it. I'll be there all day, and look forward to seeing you there. As Carie said, it may very well be quite sunny that day, so sunscreen, and as always, while we will make every effort to have enough water, we are each in charge of our own personal hydration. Bring water. Team Meeting—Wednesday, 9 May. I think we may get an early official start, probably 5:30, although you will be starting the drill away from your eventual destination as I explained last week. I will work up and present full detail in next week's newsletter, but please understand that one of the main points of this drill is for each of us to get some practice communicating with FRS radios, and that we come out with some understanding of the limitations and strengths of these radios. I'm need to get an RSVP from you next week if you plan to be there, so I can assign call numbers and set up the initial mapping. Until next week, on this, if you don't have an FRS radio and want to join in, let me know right away, we can get spares but we need to know soon. All for this week, questions, comments, you know how to find me. -Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News:

May Team Meeting—Wow, already time for the annual radio drill. On schedule for Wednesday, 9 May. I think we'll start a bit early, let's go for 5:30. If that's a problem for you let me know, we can be flexible. Here are the basics, I'll have more as we get closer the drill. This is a drill using FRS (Family Radio Service) radios of limited range. As mentioned in our last meeting, you can't really get one of these any more without the more powerful GMRS channels (for which you need a license), we'll be sticking to FRS anyway, probably our guard channel 7. You can start the drill from your home, or as you enter the Mira Mesa area in your vehicle. I will establish radio Net Control at our rally point. The rally point is in Mira Mesa Community Park, just off New Salem and Camino Ruiz, between Fire Station 38 and The Mira Mesa Recreation Center. We'll likely wind up at one of the concrete picnic benches. Starting from your home, or your car if you are driving in, listen for a full minute to see if you can hear any of our traffic, either me at Net Control or another operator on our Team (if you aren't sure WHO that is, write it down anyway). If you can hear another operator, try to establish two-way communication with him/her. If you can't hear anything, drive toward the rally point, perhaps about 1/3 the way there, pull over and try again. Repeat at least once more until you arrive at the rally point, then join us and report your results. We'll be plotting locations on a map of Mira Mesa, and discussing the exercise. This one might run a bit late as we bring everybody in.

I'll have more detail on this in later News updates, so don't worry if it isn't all clear. Two points I want to make now:

* DO NOT operate your radio or log contact while driving. C'mon, I have to say this?
* If you are getting a radio to do this drill, please make sure you have it tuned to the right channel and know how to operate it before the drill. If you bought a two-radio set (common) then get a family member/friend to do a radio check with you. Or contact me and I'll do a check with you.

We have a few radios to loan, let me know if you want one. If you'd rather not participate as an Operator, plan to join me at Net Control at 5:30, you can listen to the drill there.



Marrow Drive—Saturday, 28 April, 9am-3pm. Registration for Volunteers is closed, thank you so much. If you signed up for this, and you are a new recruit who needs a helmet/vest, please let me know NOW so I can make arrangements for you. I have some fliers available if you know someplace where you can post one, contact me to get some, or you can download it here:

http://www.sitetuneups.biz/CERT/Sta44_Marrow_Drive_Flyer_FINAL_2012-04-28.pdf

Three most important rules, ASK before you post, even on a community bulletin board, use common sense when posting (make sure it can be removed without a jackhammer), and plan to go back and remove it when the drive is over.

I try to be very careful about not using CERT to flog my own business, but I guess this is a special case in all ways, so if it is easier please send your friends/etc. to my web site to get a flier:

http://www.sitetuneups.com

It's right there on the home page.

Remember, our target is the Filipino-American population, ages 18-60, although potential donors under 45 are highly desirable. Thanks.


All for this week, questions, comments, you know how to find me.

-Steve

Damage Assessment Training

Damage Assessment Training:
Over fifty folks came in out of the rain last night to hear Ken Napior (of Foster City CERT) give a very informative presentation, training us on CERT Damage Assessment guidelines.   This was a very good session that taught us some standardized guidelines to use during inspection and assessment of structures.  For the attendees that didn’t get any handouts, here they are: handout1 & handout2.  Handout2 includes a sheet describing the Mercalli Earthquake Scale which give a more meaningful indicator of damage than the Richter Scale we are all used to reading about.

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is our Team News:

Team Meeting TONIGHT— I'm looking forward to seeing many of our new members. Some of you have already told me you cannot make it, and that's fine. You don't have to make all of them. In fact, that's why we've stuck with doing them on the tenth of the month, so everyone can make it eventually. We try to make these meetings useful and informative, and a place where you can get your questions answered. This year, we've managed to post our meeting dates on the CERT Website:

https://apps.sandiego.gov/ereg/cert/courses.php?grp=Team+Meetings

We really intend to stick with these dates, but the are NOT set in stone, if it makes sense to move a date we will, and post it in the News (this weekly email).

Tonight's meeting is 6:00-7:00pm at the Senior Center, I understand we are in the Media Room again. When you enter the front door on the West end of the building, the media room is about 2/3 of the way down the hall on the left.

The Center is on the North side of Mira Mesa Blvd,. between New Salem/Reagan and Camino Ruiz. Note that you cannot turn left off of Mira Mesa Blvd. into the Senior Center. As you travel West on Mira Mesa Blvd., as soon as you pass the Senior Center turn into the first drive, NOT the second.

See you there!


Marrow Drive—They opened 20 slots for this, which filled rapidly. Thank You. It didn't make sense to sign up more people than this, since we don't really have the psychical parameters of this event set yet. If we need to go to multiple shifts or something like that, we'll re-open signup. I'll put out a special announcement if that happens. Once again, thank you for your support of this worthy effort.


That's all for this week, questions, comments, drop me a note.


-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News:

Team Meeting—10 April, 6:00pm in the Senior Center. We'll do an ICS exercise, which I am just starting to plan, so more on that later. We will probably just do a paper exercise, so gear is not required.


New Assistant Team Leader— I am VERY pleased to announce that Jennifer Tang has accepted the position of Assistant Team Leader for Team Mira Mesa. Jennifer will be helping me with some team-related items that could use a little attention, like our communications plan, and she will be running some of our meetings in the near future. I am really forward to working with Jennifer as we improve the quality of our team infrastructure and our instructional meetings.


New Members— We got NINE new members from Academy 27. ZOWIE! Please welcome:

Jason Costarakis
Lisa Drayton
Susan Francis
James Howard
Jasen Koerner
Dorothy Ledesma
Robert Nunez
Carlos Nunez
Ross Slocum

As you old hands might imagine, I'm just a little excited. Let's all go out of our way to make the new people feel welcome, and share our experiences, we all know we need them.



Bone Marrow Drive—I'll have more on this in the Battalion News, but I want to take this opportunity to make a special pitch to my Team. Fireman Arsenio Ortanez, a 20-year veteran of SDF&R was diagnosed in 2007 with a very bad form of leukemia. Fireman Ortanez is now in serious need of a bone marrow transplant. A previous donor drive produced over 800 potential donors, but there is a catch; by a fickle trick of genetics, the best chance for a match is when the Donor and Recipient are of the same ethnicity. Fireman Ortanez is Filipino, a population that is very poorly represented in the National Donor Registry. So he needs a large number of Filipinos to step up.

And we all know where those are going to come from, don't we?

Fortunately so does SDF&R. A marrow drive is being organized for Saturday 28 April at Station 44 on Black Mountain Road. If we get anywhere near the crowd we need (and we will if I have anything to say about it), the Firemen will need help handing the masses, so they are asking CERT to step in to provide support for this effort. You veterans know that we normally don't do this sort of thing, but this isn't normal. The announcement will go out to all San Diego CERT, but I'm asking Team Mira Mesa to make a special effort to be there. This is our back yard, these are our neighbors. I should have a press release, fliers, backgrounders, all that good stuff in the next few days if you want to ask your friends and neighbors to go to the drive, so you should be able to give them something by early next week, or this weekend if we are lucky. For now, if you can possibly put any time in on 28 April, please sign up on the web site:

https://apps.sandiego.gov/ereg/cert/courses.php?grp=Team+Trainings/Activities

Yes, you new people can do this! Volunteer hours only for this so far, I don't know, we'll see if we can give it team meeting status. Let's show 'em something guys.


All for this week, questions, comments, drop me a note, especially you new people.


-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News:

Team Meeting—10 April, 6:00pm in the Senior Center. We'll do an ICS exercise. I think we will construct a fairly simple paper scenario with timeline that we will just read together, then we'll haul out some of those forms we keep talking about and apply them to the situation. I want to put some emphasis on practicing how we develop information under NIMs guidelines. Our handoff to incoming professional responders might be the most important thing we do in a catastrophe, and the closer we can get to what they expect, the better.


Hours for March—please have your hours in to me by the end of this week.


Scripps Ranch Team Meeting tonight—At the Scripps Ranch Library, 7:00pm. One of their members is a nurse who regularly teaches triage to other professionals. She will be doing a presentation, I understand that there will be an emphasis on infant triage, something we don't get much. Because we did not have a formal Team Meeting this month, this will count as a Team Meeting for March if you attend. Please let me know soonest if you want to go, I will RSVP for you.


Academy 27 Graduation—I don't have the final numbers in, but it would appear that we have 10 new members. No, I'm not kidding, it's somewhere around that number. It also appears that the majority signed up at the Street Fair. Those of you who helped out last September will remember that we did a few attention-getting rescue drills, and signed up about 45 interested people, out of which we got 10, a pretty darn good percentage for this sort of thing. This stuff works folks. I'll introduce the new people next week when I get the details.


That's all for this week, stay safe.


-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News:

Team Meeting—10 April, 6:00pm in the Senior Center. We'll do an ICS exercise. I think we will go for a discrete scenario, that is, we get sent to a scene where professional resources may or may not arrive eventually. We'll be emphasizing the size-up, data collection/analysis and report development, as well as hand-off of command/control for the incident. Please mark your calendars, especially those of you who graduated last June and might be short a meeting. See you there.


Summer Rescue Drill—Please mark your calendars for Sunday, 10 June. We will be repeating our Battalion 5 Summer rescue skills drill, most likely over at the Carmel Valley Recreation Center where we had it last year. The Carmel Valley Center is fairly central for our Battalion, and has some features that will help us do the drill. No cribbing this time, instead I think we will learn an evacuation technique that Brian was teaching at the Refresher last Summer. It should be good, I hope you can join us.

That's all for this week, questions, comments, you know how to find me.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting—No Team Meeting this month, you have the option of attending the St. Patrick's Day parade or going to another Team's meeting.

Please let me know if you plan to attend another Team's meeting, so I can let the Team Leader know.

Our next Mira Mesa meeting is 10 April, 6:00pm in the Senior Center. We will do an ICS exercise. My thinking on this is that there are two basic ways to scope the drill:

* Setting up a scratch ICS at our rally point immediately following a catastrophe. By that I mean "sudden" catastrophe which knocks out most of our standing response infrastructure. Our general goal will be to gather as much information as we can, process it, and produce it in such a way that we can cleanly hand our situation management off to County Emergency Operations when they get online.
*Integrating into the command system during a progressive emergency (such as a wildfire), or in the days following a catastrophe

Both of these use the same management structure (they are supposed to anyway). The difference is in the duties and participation of the individual. We won't be able to cover both of these, so I'm going to pick one or the other and try to develop something that all of us can participate in at some level. I welcome your thoughts.


All for this week, Battalion News follows. Stay Safe.

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting—No Team Meeting this month, you have the option of attending the St. Patrick's Day parade or going to another Team's meeting. Most of the meetings are posted on the website:

https://apps.sandiego.gov/ereg/cert/courses.php?grp=Team+Meetings

Please let me know if you plan to attend another Team's meeting, so I can let the Team Leader know. Our next Mira Mesa meeting is 10 April, 6:00pm in the Senior Center. We will do an ICS exercise.



Academy 26 Graduates—If you graduated from Academy June of last year, you have until this next June (4 June to be exact) to attend two Team Meetings and two Continuing Education classes. I will be contacting each of you individually over the next week by email to check on your progress and ensure that you qualify for DSW before the deadline. We need you.


That's all for this week, Battalion news follows, probably this afternoon. Questions, comments, drop me a note.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

February Hours are Due—Please send in your volunteer hours for February. If you attended the Team Meeting, please drop me a note to record it, even thought I saw you there. Thanks


No Team Meeting in March—I plan to march in the Parade on the 17th. If you march in the Parade, you will get credit for a Team Meeting. More on the Parade in Battalion News. If you need a Team Meeting, but don't want to do the Parade, you can attend another Team's meeting. Drop me a note if that is something you want to do.


That's all for this week, questions, comments, you know how to find me.


-Steve