On Saturday, May 8, 2010, West County Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.) graduated another 55 community members in the first of two basic C.E.R.T. academies held this year. Emergency services bureaus from six Orange County cities comprise the West County C.E.R.T. group: Buena Park, Cypress, Los Alamitos, La Palma, Seal Beach, and Westminster.This latest basic C.E.R.T. academy provided community members with specialized training in disaster preparation, search and rescue, fire prevention, medical operations, terrorism awareness, critical incident stress debriefing, team organization, and the incident command system. The academy consists of a 20-hour commitment over the course of two weekends. For their final test, class members participated in a large-scale terrorist attack exercise. With additional training, class members may move on to the advanced C.E.R.T. program to become full members of West County C.E.R.T.
West County C.E.R.T. members respond to a variety of call-outs both pre-planned events and emergency incidents. They have responded to everything from assisting on county-wide wild fires, flooding incidents, to traffic control during parades. Recently West County C.E.R.T. was instrumental in assisting during a Point of Distribution (POD) event during the H1N1 flu virus.
Community members living or working within the West County C.E.R.T. jurisdictions interested in attending the next C.E.R.T. academy (tentatively planned for fall 2010) may visit http://www.westcountycert.com/ for more information or send an email to westcountycert@yahoo.com. The academy fills up quickly and space is limited.