By Staff Shore News
Published on 11/11/2004
East Haven residents are coming together to help protect their town in times of emergency. Last Monday, East Haven's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) assembled at Fire Station Three to continue its training, this time to learn firefighting techniques. Since September, police and firefighters in town have been training 45 local volunteers to be able to assist emergency services in the event of an emergency situation. The CERT team members have been learning a variety of skills, including first aid, search and rescue, traffic control, incident command and control. Volunteers are also taught family preparedness measures to ensure their own family's safety in the event of an emergency. The most recent training taught them how to properly handle fire and how to extinguish fires. Fire Department personnel ignited fires in pans, which trainees put out with fire extinguishers. Firefighters also put on displays of how to properly handle fire. "They are expected to do hands on training," said Chief Wayne Sandford of the East Haven Fire Department. "They actually put out the fires. When we do the first aid course we will have dummies there and we will show them how to put on splints, how to revive someone, all the procedures." CERT Teams are part of a national effort initiated by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) following the Sept. 11 attacks. Following the attacks, FEMA received an influx of phone calls from citizens inquiring how they could help. The CERT program was designed as a means to fulfill citizen's desire to help and to provide valuable assistance to local emergency service providers. In the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise, CERT members will be properly trained and equipped to assist within their neighborhoods. East Haven received a grant of $10,109 from FEMA in August to create its own team. The money from the grant goes towards the training and equipment for the team members. Each team member is provided with first aid kits, hard hats, flashlights, goggles, and work gloves to assist them in emergency response. Team members are also provided with identification to distinguish themselves as emergency personnel in times of emergency. Training began for East Haven's CERT Team in September. Since then the team has been broken into divisions based on individual neighborhoods. Each team appoints a team leader to help coordinate training. The training is schedule to be completed in May. Sandford hope the team will be valuable, especially in the event of natural disasters, in assisting their neighbors if emergency services are delayed or too busy to help right away. In addition they will also be able to provide information to emergency services when they do arrive, by acting as the eyes and ears for police and fire departments, or providing services at public events for which rescue personnel might otherwise be required.
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