FEMA Liability Guide

Dear CERTers, The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program at FEMA is pleased to announce publication of the new CERT Liability Guide, now available for download on the Supplemental Information page of the National CERT website at http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/downloads/pdf/CERT_Liability_Guide.pdf. CERT programs across the nation support post-disaster response and help ensure that CERT efforts are as safe and effective as possible. CERT advocates have understood that program activities can create risk and adverse consequences; however, perceptions about liability may become a larger barrier to CERT formation, activities and partnerships than is justified by reality. The purpose of this Guide is to offer information and suggested techniques to help local CERT programs overcome this barrier. The audience includes local programs, their sponsoring government agencies and legal advisors, and CERT members themselves. The new CERT Liability Guide presents the benefits of risk management for CERT programs, including building confidence and a positive public image for the program, reducing the cost of insurance and avoiding other costs, helping to preserve a local program’s investment in its members, and increasing overall participation in CERT. The Guide also presents five steps to effective risk management for local CERT programs: 1) Securing leadership support; 2) Collecting information to identify liability exposure; 3) Identifying and analyzing risks; 4) Adopting strategies to manage risk; and, 5) Adopting standard practices for ongoing risk management. Specific activities and considerations are described under each of the five steps. Local CERT programs that consistently follow the process described in the new Guide can benefit themselves, their sponsors, their members, and the community. Please download and review the CERT Liability Guide. And please let CERT practitioners and advocates around the country know your thoughts about the new Guide or any aspect of CERT at the CERT Online Forum. Share your ideas, suggestions and comments at http://community.fema.gov. Thank you! Sincerely, National CERT Program Federal Emergency Management Agency ________________________________________

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News: Team Meeting—Tuesday, 10 July 6:00pm-7:00pm at the Senior Center. Our Assistant Team Leader Jennifer Tang went to the CE last month on the new triage procedure, so she will be sharing what she learned with us. Jennifer is trained as an EMT, so I think this will be a great session, and I hope you can make it. If we have time, we'll talk about our Calendar for the rest of the year. Hours Due—I thought a few more of us than reported went to the triage CE, so if you forgot to tell me you attended, please let me know today. You will not get credit for this CE if you do not report the hours in the same month in which you took the training. The rescue skills drill we had in Carmel Valley, also on the 10th, is good for a Team Meeting, but you have to turn that in also to get credit. No credit, that's a bad thing. Turn 'em in. All for this week. Battalion News follows. Thank you for your commitment. Have a safe and happy holiday. -Steve

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News: Team Meeting— Tuesday, 10 July, 6—7pm in the Senior Center. Assistant Team Leader Jennifer Tang is going to hold forth on our new triage system. If you made the CE on June 10, come anyway, we want your input. We will also talk about our calendar for the rest of the year and into 2013. No News Next Week—I'm out of town for a few days. Very limited access to email. If it just won't wait, send me email, I will direct you to someone who can help. Hours Reminder—As I just mentioned. no news next week, so this is your hours reminder. Please hold off until the end of the month so your reports do not pile up in my mailbox. First of July will be fine. Do NOT forget to declare your CE if you went to the triage class. I don't have the signup sheet for that, so I can't ping you if you don't report it. No report, no credit. No kidding. Don't forget. That's it for this week. Not much to go in the Battalion News, so I may not do one. Stay Safe. -Steve

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News: July Meeting— Tuesday, 10 July, 6—7pm in the Senior Center. Still working on repeating the highlights of the triage CE. Apparently the new system is a bit more complex than I anticipated. If you went to this CE, we hope you can attend and share your experience with us. As we will be past the mid-way point on 2012, I will haul out the calendar and discuss our plans for the rest of the year, and we'll talk about our goals for 2013. No Haunt Drill this year—I have just been informed that the people sponsoring the Mira Mesa Haunted Manor will not do a production this year, due to financial issues. For those of you who are new, for the past two years we have used the Haunt as a venue for a fairly elaborate search and rescue exercise with live victims and many unexpected obstacles. The Haunt was an intricate maze that represented a real challenge all by itself. With just a bit of lead timer, we are going to look for another venue. I'll keep you posted. All for today, questions, comments, you know how to find me. Battalion News later today with any luck at all. -Steve

Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the news: Rescue Drill/Team Meeting—This counts as our Team Meeting for the month. If you have not RSVP'd yet, and want to go, please let me know by tomorrow (Wednesday) 4:00pm. I need to make final arrangements for equipment. Sunday, 10 June, Carmel Valley Recreation Center, 1:30—4:30pm. We'll be working with a variety of rescue techniques, generally divided into three sessions, Stabilization/Extraction/Removal, Transport and Rescue Knots. I'll have more on all this in the Battalion News. I hope to see you there. July Meeting— Tuesday, 10 July, 6—7pm in the Senior Center. I think we will try to get some of the people who made the triage CE to share their experience with the rest of us, so we all have some knowledge of the new system. If this comes up again at a later date as a CE, you can still take it for full credit, and I strongly recommend that you do. DSW Cards—I will turn this month's batch in on Thursday afternoon, so if you think you qualify for your first card or a renewal, and you have not contacted me about it yet, there is still time, but please do it today, the last minute thing wears on everybody. National Preparedness Month—This one is for your long range calendar. The Mira Mesa Street Fair is Saturday, 15 September. Last year we did VERY well recruiting at the Fair, many of our new Members signed up there (glad to have you folks). Obviously I'd like to repeat that experience, so please make a mark on your calendar for 15 September, and plan to join us for a few hours. There will be interactive demos again, I'm not sure what those will look like, but you can bet the dummy will get another workout. Also this year in National Preparedness Month we will once again be participating in the Memorial Stair Climb. That's on the Calendar for 8 September, at the Hilton Bay Front. It's a busy month for us, as there will be other things available for us during the month. Clearly I'll have more on these important events as we get closer to Fall, please keep the two dates in mind. All for this week, questions, comments, you know how to find me. -Steve

Conducting CERT drills and exercises just got easier

Dear CERTers, The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program at FEMA is pleased to announce a new library of 20 ready-to-use CERT exercises of all types, now available for download on the new Drills and Exercises page of the National CERT website at http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/exercises.shtm. The new materials will help CERT programs conduct a variety of drills and exercises based on different scenarios. Drills and exercises are great opportunities for CERT programs to engage their volunteer members and to practice, assess, and improve their program’s emergency response plans and on-the-ground operations. The scenarios, objectives, and events of each exercise can be used as is or modified to address the local CERT program’s training priorities. The new web page includes materials for 4 drills, 6 tabletop exercises, 4 functional exercises, 4 full-scale exercises and 2 competitive events that were developed according to national guidance and principles outlined by the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP). All drills and exercises were developed with common terminology and a systematic approach consistent with the National Incident Management System (NIMS) framework to ensure that CERT programs are well-integrated with emergency management and incident response operations. Planning exercises and drills does not have to be a daunting and time-consuming task for CERT programs. Review the drills and exercises on the National CERT website and start planning for your next CERT exercise today! Please let CERT practitioners and advocates around the country know your thoughts about the new library of exercises or any aspect of CERT at the CERT Online Forum. Share your ideas, suggestions and comments at http://community.fema.gov. Thank you! Sincerely, National CERT Program Federal Emergency Management Agency

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