On the Roll out of t

On the Roll out of the Community Emergency Plan and the CERT Drill today..

Editorial opinion by Ron Thomas

How do you gauge success when you roll out a program such as this? I think it will be demonstrated over time. Whether the people in the community take it seriously or not will be the final proof.

The leaders in the community are the Neighborhood Watch Block Captains and the CERT team working hand in hand. What we have learned from today’s drill is that the loss of life in a real emergency is proportional to how fast the injured can be reached. It took an hour and twenty minutes to canvass the entire park. What that means is that if you were injured it may have taken that long for us to find you.
We were only able to move that fast because of the volunteers that came to the clubhouse to help. With only the CERT team we estimate it would have taken 4 to 6 hours to canvass the park. You can see that is a dangerous time span. Even if the CERT team had not been in charge the time would have been the same because a trained firefighter or policeman would have to rely heavily on the knowledge of the CERT team.. They simply would not know the community as intimately as the folks that live here.

This time of an hour and twenty minutes may be far to long for a person that is bleeding badly or another that needs oxygen. We need to cut it down substantially. The how is not a mystery. We have the tools and the people. What we need is a recommitment to the Neighborhood Watch Program. That program is the key to faster response times.

Last time we looked at the Block Captain roster there were about 18 Block Captains throughout the Neighborhood. Each of those had several co-captains. Each Block Captain group individual had only 4 or 5 homes to account for and pretty much new on a daily basis who was home and who was not... Who was ill and not.... Who had  special needs and so forth. If we had that information today that hour and twenty minutes would have been 15 minutes! Simple as that. The CERT team would have been going on rescue calls because their partners in Neighborhood Watch would have that vital information to them very fast. Response would have started as soon as Neighborhood Watch called in the first injury even before all the data was in.

So here is what has to happen.. Those don’t want to participate in Neighborhood Watch any longer should tell the new co-coordinator, Marlene Crites so we can get on with finding a replacement. Marlene is wearing three hats now... First, she is a dedicated Block Captain, Second , she is the Neighborhood Watch Block Captain Coordinator and lastly, she is a fully trained CERT team member.  Marlene and the CERT team are going to redraw the maps so that the search areas correspond to the Neighborhood Watch Areas. This will have both groups working on the same page. We expect that Marlene will be asking for Block Captains to meet on a regular basis and help deign a plan and help each other find ways to serve the community.

As time goes forward I will address more issues that have come up as the result of our meetings and propose new ideas and solutions. You are invited to comment with your ideas and solutions... I will shamelessly steal them and incorporate them into our new Emergency plan as it grows from its infancy.