And now... Something completely different!

Many of you know how involved I am with Emergency Preparedness. Well, I went one "step" further last night.

I have taken the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training for the City of Folsom about 2 years ago. Last night (10-28-08) the class graduated their 5th class. There are now about 107 CERT volunteers for the City of Folsom.

I thought I would share a few of my taking a "step" further into emergency preparedness!

The graduating class participates in an emergency scenario. The scenario was a severe earthquake and the victims are in a two story office building. The CERT members are to use their new skills and search through the building for anyone caught in the earthquake.

Here is what happened to me! I was the victim of a crushed foot. When I was "found", I had a chair over my foot near the "bruising". It "was" very painful!

And this is what the CERT team did to rescue me... stopped the bleeding and put a splint around my ankle. It worked too! I couldn't move my ankle at all, but could still wiggle my toes. Naturally, that wouldn't happen, the victim would be in too much pain to want to wiggle their toes!

The team did a really great job at rescuing everyone.

Here are a couple more pictures of "Victims".

This lady had her arm "severed" and her husband was to be in shock and hysterical. He didn't have any injuries, just shock. This means that the two of them are in two different triage sites and he wanted to find her and be with her. When he "found out" about her injuries, he would ask about the "severed" arm... what happened to it and stuff like that. His roll was to leave the area to search for his wife, making the CERT team go and get him and try to keep him calm and eventually "reunite" him with his wife and her arm.

Here are two more victims...

If your community offers a CERT training program, I highly recommend that you participate in the course, if not to help out in the community, the training will provide some insight into what you can do to be more prepared at home when a disaster strikes.

For more information on the web, see my favorites listed here on my blog.

CA OES OASIS

Every once in a while I get asked what do I do when I volunteer my time with the California OES. Well, this is one thing that I do. It's called OASIS or the Operational Area Satellite Information System. Basically it's a portable telephone with a really big antenna and on wheels. During forest fires or other emergencies, like the Southern California Wild Fires from last October, the OES will send this out so that the incident command post has telephone and internet access. The system has 24 phone lines and has internet capabilities. Unfortunately, the internet speed will slow down when their are more users accessing the internet.

For the most part, the volunteers for the CA OES wait for the official start of fire season. I bet you didn't know that California had a fire season. Yep, it pretty much takes the place of the end of fall and most of winter. So in California, those two 'natural seasons' are replaced with fire season. So we spend the 'off season' doing show and tells and fixing things on the OASIS trailers.

When fire season does start and we are called out to provide communications, we get to see some really nice country..

Get to know the 'neighbors'...

But the sleeping accommodations are a little to be desired...

But all fun aside, it's something that I enjoy doing even if I don't get paid for doing it. If you every find that you want something else to do, volunteer and help your community. I suggest a good place to start is to find a local CERT or Community Emergency Response Team. Your not committed to any monthly meetings, just go through the training and be ready to help out in your community when an emergency happens. And if your 'adventurous', why not get your Technicians Ham Radio License while your at it!

TTYL… The California Fire Season officially starts in a couple of months!

Emergency Preparedness Video

I'm giving a presentation this Sunday in church about Emergency Preparedness. This video was shown on our local NBC station about a year ago. Please take the time right now to begin to prepare for an emergency. It doesn't matter what the emergency may be, be it a flood or earthquake or even being unemployed or sick. This video pretty much sums up how most of us are prepared and I'm far from being totally prepared.