Good morning, here is the news:
*******MIRA MESA*********
Team Meeting—Next team meeting is Thursday, 10 March. We will start at 5:30 again. End at 6:30, or shortly thereafter. This is an FRS radio test. You will start from your residence or other location you have identified to me. I will establish a controlled net at 5:30. After my announcement, you will call in with your call sign and location. If you do not hear the announcement, listen at least five minutes. If you hear someone else responding to the net announcement, try to communicate with them, and have them relay your call sign and location. If you cannot hear anyone after five minutes, drive approximately half-way to the rally point, pull off in a safe location, and try again. Please, do NOT operate your radio in a moving vehicle if you are driving. When you get to the rally point, we will map your location when you first joined the net, and try to get some idea of our coverage. I will have more details as we get closer to the drill, for now, if you are planning to attend, please do the following:
* If you want to join this drill but don't have an FRS radio, contact me by email, we have some that we can lend.
* I will start asking for RSVP for this drill starting next week. If there is any chance you will attend, please RSVP, we will want to assign a call sign to you for this drill.
* If you have rarely (never) used your radio, try to get some practice in before the drill. Only have the one radio, and no one else to practice with? Drop me an email, we'll arrange something. Oh, and take a look at that manual, ensure that you know how to operate the controls. If your radio has a privacy setting, turn it off (don't know what that is? check your manual).
* Ensure that you have either fresh batteries or a fully charged radio before the drill.
Carmel Valley Team Meeting— This Thursday, 24 February, 6-7:30. I will be hauling the wound care classroom materials over there. We will go through the same wound care procedure we did last month at our meeting. If you missed our meeting, and really want to practice wound care, we have been invited to attend by the Carmel Valley Team. At the Carmel Valley Recreation Center on Townsgate Drive, Just off of El Camino Real, South of Del Mar Heights (it's in Carmel Valley, handily enough). Drop me a note if you have questions about this.
******BATTALION 5*********
Continuing Education, Volunteering and Your Taxes—26 March, 9am—11am down at NTC. Malcolm Gettman, Battalion Liaison, veteran IRS Agent. Go here to sign up:
Refresher—Several of you have asked about this. I have been in regular contact with CERT Administration, and I am assured that it is a high priority. You probably know that refreshers are hard to put together. The requirements are comprehensive, and we have to work with our available training resources to actually make it happen. I appreciate your patience, and can assure you that you'll hear about it as soon as I know through this, our regular communication channel. There is also the possibility that the County will put together a qualified program as they did last Fall, I will keep you informed.
Occasional Rant—Earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand today. About 6.3 on the Richter scale. When you have a few minutes today, please look over some of the images available and watch the video coming from there. Go to your favorite news source, or try here:
and here, Google's Crisis Response Project:
This is what it will be like. No, I'm serious. If you are thinking "we'll come through a 6.3 a lot better than that", no, we probably won't. Watch the videos like I did, try to live the experience, observe what is being done and how it is being done. Ask yourself "What would I do"? If you are activated, then you will be the one in the helmet and the vest. People will look to you for leadership. Note in several of the videos the focus is on groups of people extracting a patient from a car, or pulling blocks of rubble out of a hole. Note that the entire surrounding scene is filled with dazed survivors. Some of these latter are going into shock, and might not make it. They need someone to tell them "come with me, I'll take you to a safe place". That's a rescue, every bit as important as the car extraction, because it produces a live survivor who might otherwise have been lost. Also note that some of the rescuers are doing things we will not do. CERT does not stand on top of collapsed buildings, or go into them, unless we are supporting Professional First Responders. We rescue the people we can, and as many as we can, and we stay safe. That's our mission. If these scenes from New Zealand bring the experience a little closer for you, then I urge you to spend some time studying the videos, and thinking about what you would do.
That's all for this week, questions, comments, drop your Team Leader a note.
-Steve
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