“NYC EMERGENCY VOLUNTEERS: SAVING LIVES and BUILDING RESILIENCY”
By Ellen Cannon
On January 12, 2011 Mayor Michael Bloomberg presided at the 16th graduation ceremony of 122 Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers.
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program helps train people to be better prepared to respond to emergency situations in their day to day life in and around their local communities. When emergencies and disasters occur, CERT members can give critical support to first responders, provide immediate assistance to victims, and organize others to assist at the disaster site. CERT members also assist with local neighborhood non-emergency projects that improve the safety of the community.
New York City CERT volunteers go through a rigorous ten week course aimed at assisting neighbors in disasters which may include hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks, and blizzards. The courses are taught by retired and currently employed first responders.
The ten week training program includes fire safety, search and rescue, first aid and triage. CERT volunteers also assist the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in educating neighborhoods in the importance of preparing their own families for a variety of emergencies.
The CERT program in New York City is a joint effort between the OEM, NYPD, FDNY, and the Health Department.
CERTs began in 1983 in Los Angeles, California. City administrators noticed that during many emergencies the first to appear at the scene, prior to the arrival of professional emergency responders, were neighborhood people.
City officials in L.A. viewed these untrained citizens as potential community responders if they could be trained in basic emergency responses. Trained citizen volunteers would be especially useful during earthquakes, fires, collapsed structures, and weather related disasters, when professional first responders were spread too thin.
By 1993 The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered CERT training on a national level providing funding to cover start-up and tuition costs for programs.
Today, CERT programs exist in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. More than 2,915 communities have CERT programs.
(Jane Bullock, et. al. Introduction to Homeland Security, 2009, p.395).
New York City’s CERT Programs increased from 106 volunteers in 2003, to more than 1,400 volunteers today contributing 22,000 hours of service in 2010.
As New York City prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the importance of local volunteers assisting the victims and each other is remembered as a critical contribution to saving lives and promoting community resilience. On 9/11/2001 people from hundreds of neighborhoods rushed to help.
Three neighborhoods in west Brooklyn; Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst, responded to the catastrophe in large numbers. Using the office of then Councilman Marty Goldin, a central location for volunteer emergency responders was established.
Thousands of residents and local merchants donated time, food, clothing, water, and necessary supplies. Assisting this grassroot effort was the NYPD. This initial community response lasted over 6 weeks.
This Brooklyn neighborhood also had strategic importance with regard to the terrorist attack. Located at the gateway to New York Harbor the neighborhood included the only active military base in New York City, Fort Hamilton.
Working with the OEM, NYPD, FDNY, local hospitals and the U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Hamilton, the framework for what would become the present CERT program, CERT1NYC, emerged.
Based on the important contribution civilian volunteers made, a committee of business, merchant, community, health and religious leaders emerged assisting in the formation of the CERT program in western Brooklyn.
Successful CERT programs are located throughout the United States and assist in both emergency and non-emergency situations.
New Jersey has one of the largest CERT programs in the country with more than 300 registered teams and over 9000 CERT- trained volunteers. In July 2005, the New Jersey State Citizen Corps Council (NJSCCC) began offering qualifying CERT teams utility trailers equipped to serve as mobile command posts during emergencies. These trailers, containing triage stations and incident support centers, help to provide the necessary tools to assist professional emergency responders during an incident.
The Fairfax County Virginia, Citizen Corps Council worked with faith based leaders to encourage community emergency preparedness through a program “Ready, Pack, Go” .Following an in-depth survey by the American Red Cross which found that only one in ten Americans had developed a personal preparedness kit or a personal or family preparedness plan.The Fairfax County Citizen Corps Council started to train religious leaders to conduct preparedness workshops in their own communities. The focus of their message was,” make a kit, make a plan, and be informed”. (Sabrina Enayatulla,”Training Sessions Teach preparedness for Emergencies,”The Fairfax Observer,observernews.com/stories/current/news/081905/prepare/shtml).
In Detroit, the Michigan Citizen Corps utilized trained CERT volunteers during The All Star Game in 2005 and the 2006 Super Bowl XL game. CERT volunteers assisted security managers with preparedness measures that ensured safety at large sports events.
New York City’s CERT program has expanded to include new activities in Haiti. Following CERT volunteer efforts in the 2010 Haiti earthquake, President Clinton and former FEMA Director James L. Witt recommended establishing a CERT program to the Haitian government. In June 2010 New York City sent an eleven member team of CERT instructors to Port-au-Prince Haiti to train more than 400 volunteers in basic emergency response skills. Upon completing their training these Haitian volunteers helped to establish additional teams which were deployed to assist displaced persons.(www.nyc.gov/cgi-bin/misc/pfprinter.cgi?action=print&site)
All disasters are ultimately local. Disasters and emergencies will continue. Citizen volunteerism can make a difference in every American city.
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