What's News 2005
The latest Fresno Citizen Corps Newsletter on Disabilities Council
Meeting October 12, 2006 is published - see Newsletter
Page.
Clovis, California CERT Training starts January 10, 2006 through
February 7, 2006. Class is limited to 20 persons primarily Clovis
Residents - for information call Clovis Disaster Services at 559-324-2218.
We graduated Class 17 Saturday, October 22, 2005. There are now about
299 graduates of CERT Fresno in this area. Check out the photo page.
While not yet finalized, our next CERT Basic training could be offered
in the first quarter of 2006. Most likely in February - but stay tuned for
a schedule.
Fire Chief of the Fresno Fire Department, Randy Bruegman talked to CERT
Class 17 Tuesday evening October 18th. He told the class how First
Responders could not respond and recover from disaster without the help of
trained citizens. That the lessons learned in Hurricane Katrina and Rita
illustrate the need for the kind of training CERT provides. Get properly
trained, get prepared, obtain supplies and equipment before a disaster
strikes.
Mr. Kevin McCartney has written about his experience using Spontaneous
Unaffiliated Volunteers (SUV's) - Click here for Some
Thoughts. (use back arrow to return!) Another person has provided lessons
they learned in Katrina response.
CERT assisted in the City of Fresno ADA Council convention on Disaster
Preparedness for disabled persons Wednesday October 12, 2005. Managed by
the City of Fresno Disaster Coordinator, this is the first ever convention
of this sort in California. Pictures on the photo page. Presentations were
made by Mayor Allan Autry, Fresno Fire Department, Fresno Police
Department, American Ambulance, American Red Cross, CERT Fresno, County of
Fresno Emergency Operations and City of Fresno Public Works (Event
Sponsor). Thanks to Ed Kashian and Company for lunch sponsorship.
Tuesday October 11th we had 32 people complete the CERT Unit #2 Small
Fire Suppression module at FFD training HQ.
We had almost a full house for Class 17 Monday
evening. They are getting prepared by getting training. They
give up
two Mondays, two Tuesdays evenings and two Saturdays, what could be easier!
While this is our fifth class series this year - next year we'll
schedule four only.
We held a CERT Continued Education session on September 28th. Photo on
the photo page. CERT Fresno members heard oral
reports on the recent Katrina/Rita experiences of Kevin, Fred, Roz and Tim
as they assisted the American Red Cross in delivering service of
sheltering and medical care in Texas and Louisiana. We all were in awe of
the personal sacrifices these CERT Grads have made in their service to
others. It was a wide ranging discussion with questions covering Issues of
Communication, Training, Logistics and more. Photo identification cards
were issued to those who have completed their application and have
passed the required background check.
In a cooperative effort, when National American Red Cross Trainers were
suddenly diverted from Fresno to other more pressing ARC duties in other
locations of the United States, CERT Fresno last week (September
19th-23rd) helped crash-course train 130 newly recruited soon-to-be
outgoing ARC Disaster Service and Shelter Operation Volunteers from
Fresno. The American Red Cross has a Nation-wide drive to deploy an ADDITIONAL
40,000 new ARC Volunteers. It has been fortunate that twelve or so CERT
Fresno members were trained 18 months ago by the Fresno Madera
Chapter of the American Red Cross in ARC Disaster Response, Disaster
Services and Shelter Operations. These previously trained CERT members
have now been able to in turn train new ARC Volunteers, were quickly
available and did deploy early-on in the ARC Katrina response in Houston,
Baton Rouge, Kenner, Austin and other ARC disaster response locations. It
is a partnership of ARC and CERT we are proud of. Several CERT members (Kevin, Tim and Sharon) have returned from
volunteering, several still in the field (Roz and Fred) and others (Teresa for one) have been given travel orders for
deployment through The American Red Cross
(ARC).
There is a new opportunity for ARC Volunteers who do not want a
hardship deployment - Volunteers are needed to staff two telephone centers
(closest is in Bakersfield), Contact the Fresno Madera ARC.
Friday September 16, 2005 saw Glen and Cedric presenting CERT-Lite to
attendees at the San Joaquin Valley Amateur Radio Harvest HamConVention in
Fresno. Noted Author Gordon "Gordo" West showed what CERT and
Amateur Radio are doing to link neighborhoods in Southern California with
a weekly net. See Photo's.
Saturday September 10, 2005 Fresno Citizen Corps celebrated Patriots Day in commemoration
of September 11, 2001 attack on the United States by foreign radical Islamic
Terrorist murderers.
Fresno
CERT grads saw Selland Arena 
where up to 400 evacuees
displaced by Hurricane Katrina would be received, learn of assistance,
schools and perhaps temporarily housed if they choose to come to Fresno,
Our
CERT instructor, Kevin McCartney, 
was a manager of the Red Cross shelter
at the Reliant Center that has housed up to 18,000 people. Kevin
described the heroic work of Red Cross and Harris County Volunteers in
Houston, Texas.
Donations for the care of animals in Hurricane Katrina 866-275-3923
As CERT Fresno members know the first tenet of CERT
is "Your own safety". If responders
are injured while in process of responding they greatly increase the
disaster problem. First because they become victims themselves and second
because they deplete functioning ranks of responders. So the criticism by
local officials in the Gulf region that responders were slow in their
response to Hurricane Katrina should remain aware that "Your
Own Safety" is primary. With a huge hurricane hundreds of
miles across and with a somewhat indeterminate direction of travel what
rational emergency manager would pre-position responders within a
hazardous zone? The mangers were simply applying that hard-earned lesson
in looking out for "Your Own Safety".
CR
CERT Fresno has ended its work for the Fresno Fire Department temporarily staffing the
Hydration Unit. The Salvation Army will now assume response to two-alarm
or greater fires. CERT Fresno may be called up if a larger support is needed.
CERT was called August 27th - Saturday afternoon at 3:23 PM for a very
large apartment fire in East Fresno. We supplied well over 50 firefighters
with cold water, sports-hydration drinks and snacks when they rotated off
the line for rehabilitation. By 7:30 PM we had served box
lunches (supplied by Albertsons) for about fifty. After fire overhall we closed the hydration unit
down around 8:40 PM. A long, hot and smoky day for firefighters, police and
for CERT. The biggest loss was to the 18 families (about 50 people) who lost all they owned
in the blaze apparently needlessly started by children playing with
matches. (Two Children now formally charged by fire investigators) Fresno
chapter of American Red Cross helped the victims with overnight Mass Care
and emergency vouchers. The First Responders were very appreciative of the CERT hydration
service this day.
During a Fire Drill at Fresno City Hall August 26th, CERT participated
in a mock disabled person evacuation using some planned new equipment for
Fresno City Fire Trucks. Manufactured by Stryker© 
Truck 3 firefighters took an actor (played by State area OES Paul and his
caregiver Red Cross Sharon) down from the fourth floor of City Hall. 
Taking the staircase the Fire Fighters had never used this piece of
equipment before this drill. 
and then out of the building 
.
Truck 3 crew found the equipment easy to use. One was heard to say he could
have evacuated victim Paul by himself.
Tuesday August 16 morning Fresno Bee (TM) had a second section article
on two French Criminologists studying Criminal Profiling under our famous
California State University Fresno (CSUF) Professor Eric Hickey. Professor
Hickey is one of the world's leading authorities on criminal profiling and
has helped solve more than one serial crime. At our recent Terrorism Unit
training one law enforcement official gave his personal opinion on Terror
Profiling. His opinion was we had to do Terror Profiling - in
fact we have serial crime in terrorism - look at who was involved in the
Egyptian incident, London Bombings, the 9/11 incident, bombings in Africa and around the
world and we can quickly acknowledge there is a profile. Lodi, California
is about 120 miles north of Fresno where a terror cell was recently
identified. Message......Keep ever alert.....do not confront.....remember
you are the Eyes and Ears think CYMBALS and give the
tip to the professionals!
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA( is holding the 5th Annual
Conference on Public Health and Disasters May 21-24th 2006 in Long Beach -
to obtain more information http://www.cphd.ucla.edu/conferenceframe.htm
We can do a lot of work in seeking to help prevent disaster, but
disasters will eventually happen (that is why it's called a disaster). So
the best use of our skill is in helping others recover from disaster. FEMA
has a good publication called just that ..... Recovering
From Disaster
(Click on title to
download PDF File). Covered are Health and Safety (Yours!), Returning
Home, Seeking Disaster Assistance, Coping with Disaster (especially
children!) and Helping Others (everyone Wants To Help!).
Clovis Fire Department will offer a CERT Class Series starting late
August 2005. This class is already filled!
CERT Alert Newsletter for August placed on the Newsletters
page.
Here is the latest copy of the Fresno-Kings Department of Forestry
newsletter featuring Volunteers
In (Fire) Prevention. Volunteers
can help deliver Fire Prevention Public Education in the mountains east of
Fresno.
CERT Fresno has been staffing the Fresno Fire Department's Hydration
unit on-call recently. We have seen apartment fires, house fires and grass
fires which combined with the high heat quickly creates heat exhaustion in
firefighters. As the hydration unit we quickly respond to dispatch calls
for the unit. Distribute ice-cold liquids (water and sports drinks) as
well as snacks for firefighters off and away from the fire-line. The
firefighters appreciate it and thank us in many ways.
CERT Class 16 graduated Saturday afternoon July 30th.
(See Photo's on left menu) We held a make-up for five
people from 7;30 am, then launched into Terrorism with a class of 18.
Special FBI Agent Brad led the Terrorism unit describing domestic as well
as international terrorism incidents and the role CERT plays. Then Gwen
led the afternoon session with some activities that tested the trainees
learning through a competitive activity. ANG Firefighter Allan took the
role of Battalion Commander as we neared graduation running a disaster
simulation. Just before graduation Justin presented a slide show of Class
16's nine sessions. As we presented graduation certificates. graduates
realized what a long way they had come from the first session when they
had first met. These new graduates are true patriots and we thank them for
becoming better prepared in the new normal world we live in. We now have
almost 270 people who've taken basic level one training ready to assist
where needed in disaster preparation, response and recovery. Thanks to all
our volunteer instructors, Fresno Fire, Fresno Police, Fresno Sheriff,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fresno County, Fresno Pacific University and so many other Fresno County cities and
agencies who support Fresno CERT!
By demand, we will re-run Unit #1 Introduction To Disasters Saturday
July 30th from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM - see the July Calendar. Contact the Fresno
Citizen Corps Office for attendance.
"...And
Then They Came After Us
We’re at war. How about acting like it? Read
what Victor David Hanson writes about Islamic Radicals.
We've been voluntarily staffing the Hyradation Unit on call 24 hours by
seven days for Fresno Fire Department since July 10th. Our task is to
respond to fire scenes with ice cold water, soda's and snacks for
firefighters near-exhausted by heat while fighting a fire. Fire fighters
are exposed to the heat of the fire while wearing their heavy turn-out
clothing, helmet, air apparatus and gloves - imagine what that will do to
your body when the air temperatures hover over 100 degrees to near 110
degrees. Each day during these two weeks of soaring temperatures has shown
why the volunteer unit is much needed. We've seen a Haz-Mat incident as we
waited for testing of unknown substance, house fire in an illegally
converted garage and a grass fire nearly consume an ancient two-story
house. In the latter forty-three fire fighters were assigned and three
fire fighters were removed, treated in hospital for heat exhaustion. If
you are a CERT Fresno Graduate who passed the criminal background check,
signed all the releases and interested in possibly helping staff this
activity do call the Fresno Citizen Corps Office - this is a demanding
task and not all who are interested will be selected. Lots of waiting
around time but when the call comes time is of the essence.
San Joaquin Valley Amateur Radio Society (SJVARS) is offering Amateur
Radio License Federal Communications Commission (FCC) testing September 3,
2005 at Fresno City College from 12 noon till 3:00 PM. Contact Burt for
further details at 559-225-4136.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard in a Press Conference in London
July 21, 2005 (along with United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair) said
many of the laws currently on the books in the West amount to "19th
century legal responses" to a 21st century threat. Quoting he said
"....To I hope not over-simplify it, we have 19th century legal
responses to potentially 21st century technological terrorist capacity.
Now you don’t want to rush these things, but you do want to recognise
that there is a case for looking at whether the laws are adequate, and we
are going to do that, and included in that examination will be what Mr.
Blair and the British government has in mind." (TRANSCRIPT
OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH
THE RT HON TONY BLAIR MP, PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, NO 10
DOWNING STREET, LONDON}
CERT Instructor "Murph" took current CERT Class 16 trainees on
Thursday evening July 21st through MCI transport (after triage) to
treatment areas and then into actual medical treatment. Murph had the
group in "his hand" as he described his recent trip to the
center of London where he missed by 10 minutes the July 7th homicide bomb
killing acts. He described the professional actions London's First
Responders took with speed and efficiency when the incident occurred.
We're pleased Murph is back home after his eventful trip. Read about his
experience here in July 2005
CERT Alert
CERT graduates are reminded that they are "Eyes and Ears"
in our Central Valley. This means they should report suspicious activity
to law enforcement. One acronym that fits is CYMBALS - Color, Year,
Make, Make, Body, Attire/accessories, Looks/license, Sex/state of
registration. If an action appears to be out of place or character - it
probably is - don't sit on the information, give it to those who can fit
the piece you have into the bigger picture. Or use the older who, what,
where, when, why and how. Don't be lulled by non-events - there are those
who are probing our security in every way, every day - physically
and electronically with long term planning on their mind.
Tuesday, July 19th Gwen with assistance from Kevin, delivered Medical Ops I
unit. Trainees learned hands-on how to categorize and Triage an Mass
Casualty Incident (MCI).
Small Fire Suppression Unit 2 on Thursday July 14th was taught by The Team
of Glen and Gwen with field help from Instructors Allan and Kevin. Glen
talked about the Fire Triangle, what kind of combustibles and hazardous
materials there were. Under Gwen's sharp eye, every team had an
opportunity to extinguish a small fire using an ABC Extinguisher. Trainees
were bundled in safety gear and worked in two-person attack teams.
Students learned the necessary communication between the lead and the
follow person. We also had a little commotion because even though we
notified dispatch (in fact two calls first by Allan and next by Gwen) we
were undergoing fire training we had a PD unit arrive during our field
practice from a neighborhood 911 call, the PD Helicopter circled our site
and Allan had to wave off by radio a fire engine response - whew it must'a
been a slow night for First Responders even though temps during our field
work were still close to 100 degrees F. The Instructors agree, this is a
great class with lots of energized learners.
Class 16 began training the evening of Tuesday July 12th and will continue
on with posted schedule times. We have about 36 trainees with
additional trainees attending in order to make-up missed classes from
previous class series. Ages range from 17 years to over 60 years of age.
We learned about risk in our community from man-made, natural and
technological disasters. Preparing a 72 hour kit with vital supplies,
practicing exit drills at home and working in your own neighborhood are
critical tasks the trainees are urged to complete.
The Fresno Citizen Corps Council met Monday July 11th. Members on the
council represent first responders, community and volunteer organizations
from through-out Fresno County - not just City of Fresno. We exchange
information about past, future and planned activities to avoid
duplication, identify weaknesses and encourage conjoint activity for
disaster mitigation, preparation, response and particularly recovery.
Fresno Fire Department (FFD) Fire Chief Randy Bruegman announced the
official start in about three months of Fresno Fire Corps. Fire
Corps will be non-fire fighting support arm to FFD providing volunteers
for crew hydration at longer-term incidents 24x7 and non-hazardous
activities such as hydrant inspection. This enables fire fighters to apply
their skill to higher level and critical public safety tasks. City of
Clovis will soon offer CERT Classes. We'll post the training schedule when
completed. CERT is needed in the five-city region of Fresno County
following the flooding of last winter. Fresno County officials will
encourage this sub-county region to improve on residents self-sufficiency and
neighborhood organization. Applications for AmeriCorps members to
participate in Safe and Proud Neighborhood program from Fall
2005 through late Fall 2006 are being solicited. Email
here for further application information.
CERT responded with cold water on Monday July 11th for hydration at a
Hazardous Materials incident at a major highways intersection. Temperature
was just below 100 degrees F. Temperatures are expected to rise this week
so increased support response may be required.
Evening of July 4th, we had five CERT Fresno members Heather, Karen,
Stacie, and Carla and Cedric on-station for Fresno Fire Department
firefighter hydration. Using the training division van we drove the Fresno
neighborhood streets among an incredible number of July 4th fireworks
celebrating our nations founding. We had success in supporting the fire
fighters as they rushed from call to call during the busiest evening of
the year. Thanks to Chief Randy, Chief Joel, Chief Chuck (Especially!) and
BC Robert VT. If you are a CERT Fresno Grad we may staff this unit again
on certain days in the future so do let us know your interest. Ideal role
for CERT members to play supporting out community while gaining visibility
with area
First Responders. It's also a chance to get to know other CERT Fresno members. CERTAlert
July4th Newsletter
