Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

The Neighborhood Watch / CERT Group Met and....

3 dozen doughnuts met an untimely end at the clubhouse yesterday as members of our community's service organizations met to combine resources and make our community a safer and secure place to live.

Your CERT team has an extraordinary dedication to preparing for emergency situations in our area. They meet every Wednesday at the clubhouse for an hour and train. Think about that. For two years they meet every Wednesday. Why would retired people who could be off doing tons of fun stuff meet every week and train to help you?

Myself I am overwhelmed by their generous donation of time and energy. They also participate in other area drills, go to schools for first aid and Incident Command , learn to be HAM radio operators to provide emergency communications to this community. They do that .. but why?

Now the Neighborhood Watch program has been sporadic in what it does community wide. It was a big organization after the Thanksgiving Robbery we had several years ago when 7 homes were burgled. The community came together and Neighborhood Watch became a force to be reckoned with. Over time that enthusiasm waned and members began to drop out or not do what was needed. In time the Watch drifted off into a slumber.

CERT found a use for Neighborhood Watch and felt it would be a great partner during an emergency, saving valuable time at the front end of an emergency. Thus, boosting the CERT team's ability to rescue and save lives. At that point CERT members volunteered to take leadership of the Neighborhood Watch and find a way to make it more efficient and have the two organizations joined at the hip so to speak. All the changes have been made and CERT team members now are resigning their positions as block captains and coordinators and are returning to purely CERT duties because during an emergency they could not possibly do both jobs at the same time.

Neighborhood Watch now has a radio network that allows all members of the community to ask what is going on at any time via FRS CH6. Block Captains and Coordinators have only a small portion of the job they used to do.. They just have to take care of the 6-10 families in their block. They look out for vacationing and just do neighborly things. In an emergency they call in to CERT, over the radio (CH 6 FRS). They monitor CH 6 when they can. That's it. Coordinators keep information and forms flowing to those Block Captains in their area and meet occasionally to make policy changes. Time spent ... hardly any. They need help to bring back the quality that existed years ago.. You can help by being a block Captain or ass't .

Jacky Thomas will be overall Coordinator for awhile with AREAs 1,2, and 3 coordinators as a committee. Area 3 co- coordinators are Ruthanne Carson and Jacky Memoli. Areas 1 and 2 need Coordinators . Block Captains are also needed. ( the jobs are so easy.. I promise) Volunteer!