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

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good afternoon, here is the news:

Team Meeting—We are not having a Team Meeting in March. I will be at the St. Patrick's Day Parade on 17 March, so if you attend that you will get credit for a Team Meeting. April we're back in the Senior Center, we'll have an ICS exercise. I have seen several now, really didn't like any of them, your thoughts are welcome. Since we all just crushed our way through the NIMs classes, I'm thinking this will be interesting.

Oh, and I finally got our meetings on the web site (Wow Steve, what's it been, 2 1/2 years now and you finally got to this?). There are some corrections, we always go 6-7 for example, but those should be up soon. Go here to check it out:

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


Parade Banner—As Battalion Liaison I seem to be stuck with coming up with a parade banner for Battalion 5 (Battalion 5, that's us, North Coastal and Carmel Valley). Battalion 2 had one last year, so everyone who watched thought we were all in Battalion 2, and I really can't have that again. I've done some reading on this, it's quite a science (felt vs. vinyl, stick on letters vs. paint etc.). If this kind of thing is one of your strengths, drop me a note, I could use the help.


That's all for now, hours due next week, Battalion News follows, might be tomorrow morning. Questions, comments.........


-Steve

National Community / Neighborhood Exercise Series

Formidable Footprint - A National Community / Neighborhood Exercise Series | Projects | Disaster Rescue - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - Tabletop Exercise - Functional Exercise - Full-Scale Exercise - Drill - Local Mitigation Strategy - Local Mitigation Plan - Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan - Active Shooter Exercise - Hurricane Exercise - Recovery Exercise



Hey gang this is neat! Online exercises to keep us sharp. We should be doing this on a regular basis. Does San Diego CERT know about this?

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, and Happy Valentine's Day.  Here is the news:

Team Meeting—No Meeting scheduled for March 10.  I plan to attend the St. Patrick's Day Parade the following Saturday, 17 March.  Anyone who marches in the Parade will get credit for a Team Meeting.  More about the Parade in the Battalion News.

That's it for this week.  Battalion News follows, probably sometime today.  Stay Safe.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting—Our meeting will be 9 February, 6:00pm in the Senior Center, on Mira Mesa Blvd North side between Reagan Rd./New Salem and Camino Ruiz.  The parking lot for the Senior Center/EpiCenter is not connected to any of the others, so you really need to be traveling West on Mira Mesa Blvd. to get in there.  We'll end promptly at 7:00.  Wound care again, this is basically the same thing we did last year, and once again the emphasis will be on everyone getting actual practice.  We have the Academy training kit, so there will be plenty of materials to practice with, but by all means bring your own for show and tell and if you want to try it out.

Calendar for 2012—Here is what we have for 2012.  Please put these dates on your calendar, but remember that we need to be flexible.  A date can change, or we can drop a meeting when it makes good sense to do so.   Please look these dates over carefully and let me know if you see potential conflicts I may have missed.

9 February (Thursday)—posted above

17 March (Saturday)—St. Patrick's Day Parade.  I'll have more on this in the Battalion News, there is a schedule conflict with an important CE.  I plan to attend the parade, so it will count as a Team Meeting.

10 April (Tuesday)— At the Senior Center.  We will do an Incident Command exercise.

9 May (Wednesday)—moved back one day to avoid Mother's Day.  Annual FRS Radio Drill.  We will end at our rally point in the Park near the Rec Center.

10 June (Sunday)—annual Battalion 5 joint rescue drill.  This will probably be someplace else other than our rally point, very likely at the Carmel Valley Rec Center where we were last year.

10 July (Tuesday)—No exercise planned, but  I really want to do the knock-knock drill we discussed before.  The emphasis is on talking to neighbors and explaining your role as CERT in a real catastrophe. We might pair up where it makes sense to do so.   More on this when I  can spend more time putting it together.  We have the Senior Center reserved, if we can't put together the knock-knock we'll look at doing something else.

9 August (Thursday)—We have the Senior Center reserved, no exercise planned yet.

15 September—Mira Mesa Street Fair.  You'll get credit for a Team Meeting if you work an hour at the Street Fair.  Last year we had just enough people (with help from Scripps Ranch) to do a few transport and cribbing exercises on the street in front of our space, which got us a large number of interested people, and as a result 4-5 potential candidates coming out of this next Academy.  I call this "results".  If you can possibly make this one, please do, we can use you, you'll most likely get a little rescue practice in, and we have a good chance of growing our Team.

10 October (Wednesday)—No Meeting Scheduled. We hope that we can pull off the Haunt drill again.  I won't know about this until mid-Summer at earliest, that's when the Haunt Committee puts out their floor plan and I can write a proposal.

8 November (Thursday)—Moved to avoid the Veteran's day holiday.  We have the Senior Center reserved.  This will probably be my ever popular (in my mind at least) talk on electrical/gas/mechanical safety.

10 December (Monday)—No exercise planned, if we have this we'll probably take a look at the Calendar for 2013 and float some ideas.  Senior Center reserved.

That's all for this week, Battalion News follows, probably late morning or early afternoon.  Questions, comments, you know how to find me.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting—Our meeting will be 9 February, 6:00pm in the Senior Center, on Mira Mesa Blvd North side between Reagan Rd./New Salem and Camino Ruiz.  The parking lot for the Senior Center/EpiCenter is not connected to any of the others, so you really need to be traveling West on Mira Mesa Blvd. to get in there.  We'll end promptly at 7:00.  We'll be doing a wound care review using the Academy training equipment, but feel free to bring some of your own stuff it if you want to try it.  I have a fair amount of very tightly wrapped conformal bandage that I purchased online, but I've never used one, so I plan to get one of those out and see if it actually works, now that I've carried them around for over a year.  See you there!

Team Hours for January—I'm going to send our team report to everyone this afternoon.  I know a couple of us did NOT report the refresher they went to, that's a good way to not get credit for it.  If you reported your hours, you should have a reply from me by now.  Please stay on top of this stuff folks.

That's all for this week, Battalion News follows.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting—The great folks at the Senior Center confirmed our calendar for 2012, so we will have several of our meetings there this year.  Also in 2012, I have moved a few of our meetings away from the tenth to avoid potential issues that might lower our attendance and cause issues for the Senior Center staff.  Our meeting will be 9 February, 6:00pm in the Senior Center, on Mira Mesa Blvd North side between Reagan Rd./New Salem and Camino Ruiz.  The parking lot for the Senior Center/EpiCenter is not connected to any of the others, so you really need to be traveling West on Mira mesa Blvd. to get in there.  We'll end promptly at 7:00.  If I can get my hands on the Wound Care training module, we'll do wound care, otherwise we'll come up with something.

Team Hours—No meeting this month, but I know quite a few of us attended the refresher.  Don't forget to send in your hours, by next Tuesday close of business please.

All for this week, battalion news follows, it may be afternoon before I get it finished.

-Steve

Mira Mesa Team Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news:

NIMs Certificates—I think I have tried to correspond with all of you who have not finished these yet.  It seems like most of us are in pretty good shape.  You will need to send me five certificates, all dated on or before this Saturday, 21 January 2012.  In the days following this next Saturday, our Program Manager will direct me to drop anyone who has not finished from our roster.  I will not have any choice in this, there it is.  Put on a kick folks, we are a small but mighty team, and we can't afford to lose anybody.  Those of you who graduated Academy in this last year have a bit more time, but please don't let it creep up on you. get started now if you have not already.

Team Meeting—Thursday, 9 February, at the Senior Center pending their approval of my request.  The sharp-eyed continuity checkers in our group will have noticed that this is NOT the tenth, our traditional meeting day each month.  I do want to stay with the tenth when we can, but on those occasions where I think we will have  weak turnout because of the day the tenth falls on, either due to a holiday or yet another weekend, I will move it.  I am working on our calendar for the entire year, which I hope to present to you soon.  We will have meeting dates, reserved places to have those meetings, and planned activities for the majority of our meetings.  For the February meeting, we will move back one day to avoid the Friday.  We'll go for wound care review if I can get the training module.  Since we have an academy coming up, it won't be as easy as last time to get the module, but we should be able to work something out.

St. Patrick's Day Parade—I wanted to get this on your respective calendars.  This is a real hoot, we march just behind our Fireman and the bagpipe band at the front of the parade.  I wish I'd done a count, I think there were well over 100 firemen last year.  We were not as well represented, and this year I'm joining our other Team Leaders in doing something about that.  Saint Patrick's Day is actually on a Saturday this year, it will be a great time, please plan to join us.  There is more information on the Parade here:

http://www.stpatsparade.org/

I will have much more information as we get closer to the date.

That's all for this week, Battalion News follows.  Questions, comments, you know how to find me.

-Steve