N. Okaloosa/Crestview Community Emergency Response Team - CERT

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community. The CERT concept was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) in 1985. They recognized that citizens would very likely be on their own during the early stages of a catastrophic disaster. Accordingly, LAFD decided that some basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills would improve the ability of citizens to survive and to safely help others until responders or other assistance could arrive. The training model that the LAFD initiated was adopted by other fire departments around the country, including communities where the major threat is hurricanes rather than earthquakes. Building on this development, in 1994 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) expanded the CERT materials to make them applicable to all hazards and made the program available to communities nationwide. Since that time, thousands of dedicated trainers, organizations, and citizens have embraced the responsibility to learn new skills and become prepared to execute safe and effective emergency response. Source information for this was obtained from http://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams . If you have any questions please contact our local Team Chief Mark Brown at (850) 496-1715 or email him at [email protected]

North Okaloosa CERT is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Donations can be made to https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L4VEYRHHSKDKE