IPNTA Newsletters

November 2005

CERT TRAINING

The New York City Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program trains neighborhood and community-based volunteer teams to:

• inform, educate, and train their neighbors about disaster preparedness
• assist public safety agencies and local community boards with public events respond to local disasters in accordance with CERT protocols and support emergency personnel upon their arrival
• assist agencies in managing spontaneous volunteers at a disaster site
• Tribeca/Soho currently has one certified CERT team. Many of its members are IPN tenants. We have been meeting once a month. (If you are on the CERT team and aren't getting notices it means your email/phone is either changed or not working.

Please let us know by dropping current info in the tenant box:.

Though the meetings are for people who are already certified, we have extended the invitation to those who would like to receive the free training. Therefore, please be advised that those ready to commit and those who would just like to check out the situation are invited to our next CERT meeting. Please join us.

We have been taught a large repertoire of preparatory and reactive measures. It's amazing how just a few simple procedures can make the difference regarding survival, safety and in some cases, even the saving of lives. We don't need to watch more news reports to understand that the real first responders are usually the members of the community, or your own family members. Though CERT does not train us to be official first responders, we know there will be times where no one will come to assist. (Think 9/11 in lower Manhattan and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, not to mention blackouts, etc.)

We especially need some doctors, nurses, medical assistants, social workers with trauma training to join our CERT team. We need to get more people so Tribeca can have its own team. Battery Park not only has a large CERT team, with committees that have various disaster duties and experience, they even have people who handle boats, and some of their leaders have military experience. Certainly IPN has more people with skills such as electricians, military personel, plumbers, etc. Actually, whatever you got, we need! Go to the NYC website to get inspired: http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/programs/cert.html and then, come to the next CERT meeting at IPN: November 28th,7:00 PM, 310 Greenwich Street, Community Room (2nd floor).

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