Too Many Emergency Teams?

[Richard B the EMT]

Hot, Hawt, Phat, and bellow jigga-jigga-yeayaah? Are we speaking the common language of English, or have I been stuck into the wrong century?

[AnthonyM83]

Sorry that's *below not bellow....

Ya gotta keep up with the current vernacular Richard! New century, new words Most you can get from television...half probably just from commercials. They're just fun ways to emphasize or drag out words with fun intonations.

[Richard B the EMT]

Well, ain't that the bee's knees. I thought I was a hep cat!

Actually, by the time I find out what is in (for non drug related nomenclature), it's already out, just as I was gettin' jiggy with it.

[brentoli]

And this folks, is why Richard is one of the most beloved members of the city!

[1EMT-P]

The purpose of CERT as I understand it, is to assist in communities in the event of a disaster. CERT members are trained to perform basic first responder functions until EMS, Fire or Police can arrive.

[Kevin N. Saisi CADC EMT]

The purpose of CERT as I understand it, is to assist in communities in the event of a disaster. CERT members are trained to perform basic first responder functions until EMS, Fire or Police can arrive.

While CERT teams are trained in first aid, it is not their primary function. They are more like the old Civil Defense block captains; they work to make sure that their communities are safe by supporting the functions of a number of agencies including medical. The Medical Reserve Corps is primarily a medical unit that tends to include licensed medical professionals and others with skills to support medical functions.

Having taken the CERT medical modules, I can say that I wouldn't want a CERT member to be responsible for much more than controlling bleeding. The training doesn't even qualify one to be First Aid certified by the Red Cross.

[NREMT-Basic]

The CERT team commanders I have talked with dont want anything to do with medical. They are there to help turn off gas lines, wake people up in the middle of an evacuation, assist with light, open field search and rescue.

The folks are part of the continuum of disaster/emergency response and they are very good at what they do. When the state teams and feds come in, The CERT responders are familiar with the area, have probably walked ever inch of it. They know exactly where things like water towers and aquifers are. Each on of the teams that has been talked about has a specialty that some of the others dont have. With IMERT, I may respond to a city in Illinois that I have been too before, maybe even staid in once visiting a friend, but CERTs most valuable asset is the intimate knowledge of the area. These are neighborhood teams and sub teams. One of them probably owns a grocery store that he can open up and give other teams food and water and bathroom use, one of them sits on the city council, one is a gear head that works in a local electronics store and has a huge amateur radio set up in his basement or back porch. This is what NIMS and ICS are about. How these teams work, as the Department of Homeland Security says, seamlessly and meld together into one unified force. Is it a perfect system? Not yet. But we are working to make it so. The biggest thing we can do is start working these things from the very grass roots up. After all, CERT grew out of Neighborhood Watch. Maybe these teams will never achieve the seamless integration that President Bush and Homeland Security hope for. But in a disaster situation, like any other, many hands make light work. I think we do need to minimize the untrained "show up" volunteers. Buts not what CERT is. Most of the teams I know work very hard and train alot and spend alot of their own money on their own assets which they full well know may be commandeered. They open their homes and places of business to State and Federal EMAs. It may well occur that they could be our first line at some point. I say lets give them what they need so that the first line is a bright line. I dont know when the USA lost its sense of neighborhood and community, but the sooner we get it back, the better off we will be. Know the people on your street, your block. Know who is elderly, shut in, has a chronic medical condition. When we had a recent power outage, we had no CERT, but I put on my rain gear and went door to door. I found a neighbor who was part way through dialysis when her batteries gave out. Her phone wouldnt work because it was battery operated too. Myself and the other person making the rounds got her an ambulance. We carried oxygen tanks and changed them out for the man with COPD down the street. We moved an elderly neighbors car as it started to sink in the mud where he had it parked a few feet too close to the river. These things make differences.

There seems to be vocal group out there that says we shouldnt try...thats what the police and ambulances are for. No one denies that. But when your local 911 center is getting 300 calls in 30 minutes and your fire department is running one rescue after another, CERT and groups like them can help. They can direct traffic away from downed lines, bring their chain saws and clear a tree out of an intersection so ambulances and LEOs can get through. I have a big wooden and wire storage unit in my garage that has saws, and shovels and big flashlights and reflective cones and gasoline for generators. And yes, I am starting a CERT team. We arent the green berets out here and we arent trying. We are trying to take some of the pressure of our government by saying "we can help you help us and we can help you help yourselves." Im proud of the goofy bright green vest. Not because it makes me look in anyway official, but because it says one community member helping another...one at a time. In this era of cellular this and satellite that, what happens when those things fail. We go back to basics and folks like CERT are basic, ultra basic. And ask any towns mayor who has a CERT team if he thinks they are a problem. I have done this and they have all told me they are glad for the help and for some extra funding and tools they get because they have a CERT.

Individual----->Community----->Local------->State----->Federal------>International

We are all part of the thin line. We can all give something and I say we should.

[Richard B the EMT]

I have some peripheral knowledge of HAM Radio's ARES program, the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS), and the REACT communications groups. Are any of them, or other radio emergency groups, mentioned in any CERT plans (addressed to those who were/are trained by CERT, or who trained (or are training) a CERT group)?

[NREMT-Basic]

While CERT teams are trained in first aid, it is not their primary function. They are more like the old Civil Defense block captains; they work to make sure that their communities are safe by supporting the functions of a number of agencies including medical. The Medical Reserve Corps is primarily a medical unit that tends to include licensed medical professionals and others with skills to support medical functions.

Having taken the CERT medical modules, I can say that I wouldn't want a CERT member to be responsible for much more than controlling bleeding. The training doesn't even qualify one to be First Aid certified by the Red Cross.

Not entirely true. CERT team chiefs can, as they wish, require that members of their team be trained to at least first responder level. If they do not meet such standards, the onus falls to the chief him/herself, not to the CERT system. But as I said, CERTs are not intended to respond medically. Its actually way down on their priority list.

Sometime ago (as related to me by the Deputy Chief) of a CERT in IL, there were a string of tornadoes that came through her area. Leveled parts of several counties. Her members were out as per their agreed protocol with the fire department, shutting off gas to homes to prevent fires and explosions. They were spotted by a local LEO who asked what they were doing. They identified themselves and he asked them to come with him because they had a gas leak, couldnt get the necessary utility response and needed someone with the knowledge to shut down the gas before it ignited. This is the kind of work that CERT members are trained to do and my experience with them says that by and large they arent out there trying to usurp authority or win any medals. They are just trying to assist the communities in which they live and operate.

Its a strange conundrum: paid FFs dont like volly FFs. Paid EMS dont like volly/fire EMS. Paid EMS only seems to have something against FFs. FFs have their thing against EMTs and Medics who are not FFs. It seems to me that the problem is not that there are two many groups our there trying to serve in the event of an emergency, its that the ones who already exist cant work and play well together, are jumping each others calls, etc. I am not comparing the team I am on for it to be held up as an exemplar, I learned by lesson about that. But in that team, we have FFs (paid and volly) EMS (paid and volly) nurses, CNAs, dentists, veterniarians engineers, commo guys (who for the record are just plain amazing) and logistics guys who would plant an IMERT deployment on the other side of the sun if you asked them too. Maybe people who arent on one of these kinds of teams should stop looking at whether there are too many of them...they should start looking at how to work with each other. I have yet to be on a scene and hear a FF, or EMT complain about once of these state or community teams, but you can sure as heck get an earful of East Suburban Podunk Fire and West Suburban Podunk Fire.

NIMS and ICS may have a long way to go, but they have already gone further toward everyone on the same page, as it were, than any other plan I have seen. There may be a bunch of people literally out there looking at the NIMS/ICS plans together, but at least they are setting up their systems to be compliant because they know its either stand together and work or stand apart and fall apart. I have heard from the members of the USCG and USCG Auxiliary that the "ERT" teams that came to help during Katrina were some of the easiest to work with because for what they may lack in big time equipment or fancy titles, they make up for in working within the NIMS/ICS framework. Im a huge fan of NIMS and ICS. Ive seen it work. And yes, I have also seen it not work...but when it fails, its because the system is being implemented in a spotty fashion or it hasnt run up against a certain issue yet and so does not address it...YET. When I made a comment earlier in this thread about training, I was slapped down for not posting my NIMS/ICS/EMI certificates on the forums. I have them: 100-800 and alot of the little specialty ones along the way. If there is one thing that Katrina and 9/11 showed it was the definitive necessity for working together. If NOLA Fire and Rescue had refused help, things would be even worse than they are now. Mayor Giuliani told people not to come after a certain point, and up to a point, I can see why. Mayor Nagan did not do this. He pleaded for help and he got it. He got it from Illinois and Ohio and Washington State and Maine and Massachusetts and Texas and some responders from as far away as Hawaii and even a couple of foreign countries. Yep, there was a small Japanese contingent there for a time.

Starting in February, I will be taking FF training so that I can run EMS with a volly fire department that desperately needs medical folks. I live outside the district, but could throw a rock and hit the fire house. Now also right up the street from me is one of the houses for the FD that serves my city. Ive chose to cross the lines, as it were, to work with this other department because they need the help. The larger city department has what it needs. Lots of aparatus, lots of manpower. 85% of what this smaller village runs are MVC or other medical calls. They dont have the medical responders for it. So I go there.

Id like to see the question answered as to why there is do much disension between departments and service and volly and paid. Of course there are various levels of training and expertise. But does that mean that when what a town has the $$$ or charter for is a small volly squad to serve its citizens that they shouldnt do it? I know there have been multiple threads on paid vs volly, urban vs. rural. But Id really like to know why as emergency responders, we cant get our acts together and work and play as a team. There is so much lip service given to the brotherhood of fire and EMS, but if you watch these forums, it would seem to be all talk. After all is said and done, isnt it about the people we help?

[spenac]

NREMT Basic wrote "Id like to see the question answered as to why there is do much disension between departments and service and volly and paid. Of course there are various levels of training and expertise. But does that mean that when what a town has the $$$ or charter for is a small volly squad to serve its citizens that they shouldnt do it? I know there have been multiple threads on paid vs volly, urban vs. rural. But Id really like to know why as emergency responders, we cant get our acts together and work and play as a team. There is so much lip service given to the brotherhood of fire and EMS, but if you watch these forums, it would seem to be all talk. After all is said and done, isnt it about the people we help?"

1. Vollys cause lower pay and fewer jobs-fire or EMS.

2. Fire uses EMS just to get funds.

3. EMS professionals are healthcare and have no business in the fire business

But in every disaster I've been a part of we all pull together get the job done, then we get back to fighting each other. See just like family. My brother used to beat the hell out of me, but anybody would mess with me he'ld beat the hell out of them.