A Disaster Can Happen at Any Time. Are You Prepared To Help Yourself and Your Family?

When a disaster happens, people often look to local emergency services, such as the police department or fire department, or local, state, and Federal emergency management agencies for help.

Sometimes a disaster causes so much damage that emergency professionals are not able to get to everyone who needs help right away. By becoming a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) member, you can gain the skills to save lives and provide help within your community in the event of a disaster, such as a flood, fire, winter storm, hurricane, or terrorist attack.

Get Ready With CERT

CERT is a training program that prepares people to help themselves, their families, neighbors, and others in the event of a disaster. Through CERTs, citizens learn about preparing for a disaster and receive training in basic disaster response skills such as fire safety, search and rescue, and disaster medical operations. Whether you want to learn about disaster preparedness for yourself and your family or you want to make your community safer, CERT training will teach you how to safely respond to disasters at home, at work, and in your community before emergency professionals arrive.

Become a CERT Member

There is a role for everyone in a CERT, no matter your age or skill set. CERT is a great fit for members of Neighborhood Watch, community and scouting organizations, communities of faith, school staff, and local businesses.

To become a CERT member, you will have to take the CERT Basic Training offered in your community.

CERT Training

Communities offer free CERT training through a sponsoring agency such as a local emergency management office, fire department, or police department. CERT Basic Training includes several classes, which are usually given once a week over a period of several weeks. This training covers:

• Disaster preparedness – know which disasters are most likely to happen in your community and what to do before, during, and after a disaster.
• Fire safety and utility controls – learn about fire and utility hazards and how to safely put out small fires.
• Disaster medical operations (parts 1 and 2) – practice treatment techniques and learn how to assess patients, set up a medical treatment area, and give basic first aid.
• Light search and rescue – learn how to search for and safely rescue disaster survivors.
• CERT organization – learn how to organize and use a CERT in your community.
• Disaster psychology – understand the signs and symptoms people may have after going through a disaster.
• Terrorism and CERT – understand what terrorism is, the weapons terrorists use, and how to prepare for and respond to a terrorist attack.
• Course review and disaster simulation – review and practice the skills you learn.

In addition to basic training, communities offer other CERT training and arrange refresher classes and activities so that you can practice your skills.

Serve Your Community

CERTs play an important role in communities. Based on your community’s needs, there are many ways you can serve your community as a CERT member before, during, and after a disaster, including:

• Teaching people how to prepare, respond to and recover from for disasters.
• Assisting emergency professionals when they need help.
• Staffing special events.           
• Providing administrative support or assist emergency responders in special operations in Medical, Triage, Evacuation, Fire prevention or suppression, search and rescue, emergency communications, Ministry support, or for those with special needs or family pets.
• Supporting emergency management or taking a leadership position in your community’s operations, which could include CERT to help in disaster response or at an Emergency Operations Center arranging activities for CERT members to help people get food, housing, and practice their skills during and after a disaster.
• Leading CERT training
• Collecting information on damages after a disaster and using your training to help and guide recovery.

Get More Information

For more information about CERT. Contact:

Western Pennsylvania CERT
PO Box 174 Grove City, PA. 16127
info@westernpacert.org
724-748-9966