CERT volunteers prep for the next Big One

Emergency responders gather in Merrick to train

Posted

Sept. 21 was the 76th anniversary of the infamous Long Island Express of 1938, a massive Category 3 hurricane that slammed into the Island, New Jersey and much of New England with rare ferocity, killing 800 people and causing $308 million in damage (the equivalent of $4.8 billion today), including the destruction of 57,000 homes.

Last Saturday, 150 members of Community Emergency Response teams from Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties and New York City commemorated the disaster by preparing for the next possible monster storm, among other disasters. Assembling in seven teams, the CERT members, all volunteers, took part in a day-long training exercise at the Four Towns Fire Training Center in Merrick. The North Merrick Fire Department assisted throughout the day.

The volunteers participated in a friendly competition, known as a rodeo, to test their emergency-response skills, ranging from incident command to medical triage, said Eric Zausner, the CERT Department deputy director at the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management, which oversees the CERT program. Zausner said CERT began nationally in Los Angeles, with city officials who were developing emergency-preparedness plans in the event of an earthquake.

In September 1985, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale shook Mexico City to its core, killing 10,000 people and injuring 30,000. Los Angeles officials traveled to Mexico City to figure out what happened –– why there were so many deaths. What they often found was that survivors rushed into teetering buildings to look for or save victims and were crushed when the unstable buildings collapsed.

What Los Angeles officials wanted to do was develop a citizens corps, similar to those in Japan, to help educate the public and work with officials during disasters to ensure people’s safety in a disaster. Thus, CERT was born. Now there are CERT programs across the country.

Page 1 / 2