Followings major disasters, first responders will not be able to meet the demands for their services. Communication failures, the number of injuries and road blockages will prevent them from responding. People will have to depend upon each other in order to meet their immediate life saving and sustaining needs.
The major question we need to answer is HOW PREPARED ARE YOU AND I?
A government sponsored program that seeks to train people to be prepared is called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). It consists of four major steps:
Present the facts about what to expect following a major disaster.
Tell participants about their responsibility for mitigation and preparedness.
Train participants in the needed skills such as lifesaving decision, making rescues, safety, and doing the greatest good for the most people.
Train teams that are an extension of first responders, offering immediate help until professional help arrives.
Their are 9 courses offered by CERT to assist in preparing local teams to handle emergencies. The courses can be offered weekly for 9 weeks with each session lasting several hours, or a 2 day intensive course spanning 1 or 2 weekends.
CERT course topics are:
Disaster preparedness
Fire safety and utility control
Disaster medical operations part 1
Disaster medical operations part 2
Light search and rescue operations
CERT operations
Disaster psychology
Terrorism and CERT
Course review, final exam and disaster simulation.
(Don Usher)