CERT and other volunteer groups on scene at major incidents...?

[redundantbassist]

I was recently having a conversation with another individual on this forum on the topic of the usefulness of civilian disaster preparedness groups, like cert, at an incident. Through personal experience, I have noted that in my area most cert members, although they have "training" are extremely limited in their capabilities and are often a liability to the IC. Likewise, there has also been an issue with freelancing and some have displayed extremely unprofessional behavior, especially with "teen cert" members.

However, I would also like to say that I have only had experience with groups in my area, and have zero experience with other groups in other areas. Also, there have been some volunteer groups, such as the local FD's ladies auxiliary and the ARC who we are extremely thankful for and have proved to be an asset.

So, in your area, do volunteer groups ever respond to large incidents? If so, what are their role, and do you feel that they are helpful or generally unavailing?

 

[joshrunkle35]

Around here we have some awesome K9 volunteer teams. Search and Rescue volunteer teams are either extremely qualified, or not at all. CERT is good for traffic control, but not much else besides boiling water.

 

[Chimpie]

Thanks for making this thread @redundantbassist.

I have noted that in my area most cert members, although they have "training" are extremely limited in their capabilities and are often a liability to the IC.

CERT was designed to be the first-into in a disaster area where regular responders (fire, ems) cannot respond.

If a tornado stayed on the ground for a significant amount of time, there could be hundreds of homes in that path. The fire/ems department (the first-in rescue people) would be too divided up to perform a quality response in the first 30 - 60 minutes. CERT was designed to be first-in until the fire/ems department is able to respond.

Yes, CERT members are limited in their training, but that can be corrected. Once the basic course is over, regular additional training, including scenario exercises should be held.

Likewise, there has also been an issue with freelancing and some have displayed extremely unprofessional behavior, especially with "teen cert" members.

What was the event/incident that the members were displaying this behavior?

CERT is good for traffic control, but not much else besides boiling water.

CERT's main role should not be traffic control. If you're using them as such you're using them wrong.

So, in your area, do volunteer groups ever respond to large incidents? If so, what are their role, and do you feel that they are helpful or generally unavailing?

The town I'm in consists of about 13,000 homes, all built in the last 20 years (first house was built in 1995). There are currently over 250 members of CERT covering 28 neighborhoods. They have classes for new volunteers several times a year, plus regular meetings.

At this time they have not responded to any large incidents, but they are ready to.

 

[joshrunkle35]

Thanks for making this thread @redundantbassist.



CERT was designed to be the first-into in a disaster area where regular responders (fire, ems) cannot respond.

If a tornado stayed on the ground for a significant amount of time, there could be hundreds of homes in that path. The fire/ems department (the first-in rescue people) would be too divided up to perform a quality response in the first 30 - 60 minutes. CERT was designed to be first-in until the fire/ems department is able to respond.

Yes, CERT members are limited in their training, but that can be corrected. Once the basic course is over, regular additional training, including scenario exercises should be held.



What was the event/incident that the members were displaying this behavior?



CERT's main role should not be traffic control. If you're using them as such you're using them wrong.



The town I'm in consists of about 13,000 homes, all built in the last 20 years (first house was built in 1995). There are currently over 250 members of CERT covering 28 neighborhoods. They have classes for new volunteers several times a year, plus regular meetings.

At this time they have not responded to any large incidents, but they are ready to.

Well, the average CERT member in my area doesn't attend regular ongoing trainings for the scenarios you list. For example: everyone on my SAR team has had things like Wide Area Search, Disaster Assessment Training and everything that goes with it...everyone gets training on building markings, interior searches, triaging, lily pads, etc. Occasionally, we see a some CERT regional HQ person at such trainings, but they always exhibit zero familiarity with any of the FEMA standardized training for disasters, and often exhibit a very poor understanding of some of the basics of the Incident Command System.

Additionally, I would point out that most true disaster areas have compounded problems which require searchers/disaster aid workers to be not only competent in many various skills, but experts in many fields. For example, new hazards are created, members on a team really need to at minimum have Hazmat Ops level training for their own safety. They should have decent training in building construction, and be able to extrapolate information from maps that are no longer correct.

There's a big push from FEMA to eventually switch all disaster response from UTM to USNG, as well. CERT members have no idea what either are.

I'm not against the formation of CERT teams, or their intended utilization, but working in a disaster area truly requires a person who has thousands of hours of specialized experience. I haven't met anyone at the highest levels of CERT in my area who possesses minimum qualifications to do so. On the other hand, I've seen people from all sorts of other organizations that do. For example a lot of people with Civil Air Patrol in Ohio are more than qualified to be down on the ground, even though their mission has a focus of being in the air. I've run in to 10-20 of the CAP people in courses and they're all squared away. Every one of them. And I've run in to 10-20 CERT leaders during courses and work about 5-10 responses with their teams per year, and I've never met any of them that are qualified to do anything besides stand in the corner and panic.

It is certainly a system that could work, and should work, it just doesn't.

 

[MonkeyArrow]

I'm not against the formation of CERT teams, or their intended utilization, but working in a disaster area truly requires a person who has thousands of hours of specialized experience. I haven't met anyone at the highest levels of CERT in my area who possesses minimum qualifications to do so. On the other hand, I've seen people from all sorts of other organizations that do. For example a lot of people with Civil Air Patrol in Ohio are more than qualified to be down on the ground, even though their mission has a focus of being in the air. I've run in to 10-20 of the CAP people in courses and they're all squared away. Every one of them. And I've run in to 10-20 CERT leaders during courses and work about 5-10 responses with their teams per year, and I've never met any of them that are qualified to do anything besides stand in the corner and panic.

Why is your CERT team being deployed so often? My understanding is that they are only to be used for some sort of wide scale disaster where people with hands and minimal training and equipment could be useful, like an earthquake or tornado.

 

[redundantbassist]

Thanks for making this thread @redundantbassist.


What was the event/incident that the members were displaying this behavior?

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I'll give you a few examples. A little over a year ago, the service that I was employed with at the time was providing EMS coverage to a concert/ cycling event. There were many CERT members there, who were mainly doing traffic and acting as crossing guards. At one point, a woman attempts to cross the road (which was completely free of cars at the time btw) not at the crosswalk, one member shouts "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROAD!" The way these individual conducted himself was extremely unprofessional to say the least.
Another time, I attended a concert with my significant other, and we were walking around looking at the vendors. We passed the cert tent, and I observed several teenage members behaving with large amounts of horseplay, and the adults were not doing anything to correct their behavior. I don't know if the young members are allowed to respond to incidents but i certainly hope cert has enough common sense to restrict 14 year olds from responding to scenes.

 

[joshrunkle35]

Why is your CERT team being deployed so often? My understanding is that they are only to be used for some sort of wide scale disaster where people with hands and minimal training and equipment could be useful, like an earthquake or tornado.

I work for a private organization "The Ohio Special Response Team", that is the only statewide "official" Search and Rescue Team in Ohio. Obviously, we have a FEMA team that does USAR, but they are federal. We are only tasked with ESF#9, Wilderness Search and Rescue, and are the only agency that is a part of Ohio's Emergency Response Plan. We have several units that deploy statewide under the jurisdiction of a county. In some counties, our boss is the County EMA, in other counties, it's the Sheriff.

We are deployed about 20-30 times a year for a variety of functions: typically missing persons or body recovery missions (like a drowning). We do several monthly training exercises as a private agency, and quarterly and yearly exercises that are evaluated by The State of Ohio EMA. On top of that we do regular training to maintain certifications.

I run into CERT leadership at the county level during training courses that someone else (like the state or a county) is hosting.

Where we see CERT deployed are usually in two main areas:

1). When a search operations have exhausted all available resources. This usually ends up being counterproductive because, no joke, we waste more resources looking for missing CERT members, rehabbing ill-equipped CERT members, or medically treating injured CERT members who aren't prepared to be off of the sidewalk (so to speak).

2). The area where they are really productive is on a "******* Search". I apologize for the language, but that is the official term. When we are conducting a large scale multi-agency operation, the media usually gets involved. We will purposely ask for CERT to be mobilized, send them a few "real" searchers to lead them, and then send these high visibility people to be followed by the media to conduct a search of an easy terrain, low probability area, so that real search operations can be conducted elsewhere. We still end up with a lot of tired, dehydrated, injured, good-hearted CERT volunteers who require medical attention, which eat away at logistics and RIT teams.

CERT has its place and uses, but just generally not in the field. To me, it's a lot like a volunteer firefighter that takes a 36 hour class. If you have a strong backbone of experienced leadership, those "low information volunteers" are great assets that can be strategically placed. On the other hand, if you had an entire area covered only by inexperienced volunteer firefighters who never wanted to learn any more depth to their trade, then you would have a mountain of a useless nightmare.

Most people I work with have literally thousands of hours of training. The people on the FEMA USAR teams in many cases have even more (when you realize that they have specialized engineers, doctors, etc.). CERT would be great if the leaders had a 25 year career in disaster response. However, where I'm at, the leaders (at least at some of the county levels) are just kind hearted librarians who are really good at organizing meetings.

 

[RedAirplane]

I have heard of CERT teams being used as the volunteer arm of the fire department, to work first aid stations at special events etc. However this backfired in the one case I heard about so...

 

[gotbeerz001]

Sadly, all the CERT teams I have ever been exposed to are made up of 45-60 year olds who truly want to be part of something but lack the existing skillsets (or the time to acquire them) needed to have it work well.

It basically becomes a bi-monthly exercise in people wearing neon green t-shirts brainstorming ideas which will never come to fruition.

 

[Chimpie]

It basically becomes a bi-monthly exercise in people wearing neon green t-shirts brainstorming ideas which will never come to fruition.

I've experienced a lot of that over the years. Being the young(er) one in the group, I've always tried to push for action. Sometimes I've won, sometimes I didn't.