Summit County is looking for volunteers to go through CERT training—that’s the Community Emergency Response Team. The county’s Emergency Manager Chris Crowley says CERT will help you prepare for just about any kind of disaster.
Crowley detailed what kind of training is involved with CERT.
“A higher level of first-aid." Crowley said, "We do light search and rescue, we teach people about radio communications, creating community. First and foremost, of course, family emergency and communication plans. We teach you how to use the incident command system, so that you understand how first responders are going to actually participate in an emergency. We do not teach people how to fight fires directly or repel from helicopters. We’re really there as support networks for your family first, your community second.”
The next class for CERT will begin soon.
“Our next class will start October 15th at the Summit County Health Department at 6:30 pm." Crowley continued, "The great part about it though is the majority of our classes our now offered online. You can complete the entire eight-class program almost entirely online. We only have four meetings that are really the hands-on training portions. We’re encouraging everybody to go to SummitCounty.org and go to the emergency management page and you’ll see the CERT logo click on it and you can register. That will give you the information to get online and start learning to be an Emergency Response Team member for your community.”
He explained the rest of the schedule.
“There are four hands-on workshops. The 15th is the first of it, it’s sort of the intro. The online courses are offered through our learning management tool and you can take those at your leisure." Crowley explained the other workshops, "We do first aid and medical, we do light search and rescue training, we do fire extinguisher training. Then we have I guess a final exam if you will but it’s really more of a mock disaster where you get to put all of your skills to the test. We fake a disaster and try to operate in that same type of environment.”