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CERT Meeting Notes for July 9^th, 2002

A huge thank you goes out to Doris Kennedy for her allowing the CERT group to use her hangar for meetings while the POA finishes construction. We will start having our meetings in the POA hangar starting in August.

Command Station

The highlight of the meeting was Gary Apple’s unveiling of his recent creation, a portable, flexible, nearly indestructible Command Station. The station will be kept permanently in the POA hangar along with communications, first aid and cribbing supplies. Gary stressed that the station is a work in progress and he welcomes suggestions for supplies and whatnots to be added to it. Some things that were mentioned in the meeting included: large Volusia County map, 12Vdc sockets that could be connected to a car battery or golf cart, color-coded magnets for team members and triage/damage reporting. If you have any suggestions or would like to see the station, please give Gary a call or drop him a note.

Gary proudly displaying
his Command Station

General Topics

T-shirts… Ed Hickox will get more CERT T-shirts if he can get 10 or more orders (price will be in the $8 to $10 range). Eight people at the meeting signed up for shirts. If any of you are interested in a shirt, please drop me a note with quantity and size. Also, there was interest expressed in getting CERT hats. Like the T-shirts, I’m sure we can get hats if there is a large enough order. Let me know if you’d like a hat too.

Interest and Skills Inventory… I have added a Skills Inventory column to the CERT Roster to assist Command Post personnel in quickly identifying individuals for specific deployment. For instance, if an assessment of a damaged structure were needed, the Command Post person could look at the roster (in the binder in the new station) to see who has construction experience. (Please take a minute to send me a note identifying your skills, areas of interest, and available equipment if you haven’t already done so. I will then update the Roster and have it posted on our website.)

Triage Videotape

We viewed the videotape Ed made of the triage lecture given at the Universal Studios mock disaster. The scenario was a tornado disaster that caused an undetermined number of casualties having unknown injuries. The lecturer gave 10 cases in rapid succession followed by a review of triage techniques and procedures. He then went through the 10 cases again to see how the audience changed their answers once they better understood triage.

The triage videotape elicited a lot of excellent discussion by the 16 attendees at our meeting. Some points that were made (not in any particular order):

- The tape is very good in that it gives a clear, concise description of the triage process. It causes you to think about the topic rather than just read about it.

- A 15-second examination of a wounded individual is just unrealistic. In a real situation, one must be more thorough and observant than what the tape advocated. For instance, it is possible for a severely injured person to get up and walk, but that person certainly wouldn’t be considered “green” tagged.

- While triage is very important to know, we as a CERT group would more than likely be involved in treatment.

- Common sense must prevail in any emergency situation. The tape is just informational.

- Even with the triage training lecture that the Universal Studios staff gave, our participants at the mock disaster found a lot of mis-tagged victims when they got out into the disaster area.

I have made copies of the tape for anyone who would like to see it for the first time or look at it again. I also have copies of the mock disaster tape we played in June. Please drop me a note or call if you would like to borrow them. (Once the storage cabinet is set up in the POA hangar, the tapes will be in there.)

Next Meeting

The next will be in the POA hangar conference room on August 13^th, at 2 PM. The parking there is limited, so if you can bike or cart, it would be helpful. There is additional parking along the side the building.

I am trying to get a speaker from the Volusia County EOC to give us a presentation on hazardous materials, the most prevalent threat to our county and community. I will be sending out a confirmation when the meeting time gets closer.

Regards, Susan