Humboldt Campus Emergency Response Teams

The campus community, including your students, friends, and colleagues, need your help! When the next big earthquake strikes the North Coast, our local fire department rescue personnel will be stretched too thin to provide Cal Poly Humboldt all the help we will need. We must become more self-reliant on campus by training and equipping selected members of our own staff, faculty & students to create our own on-campus emergency response teams. Please consider volunteering to become a member of the Humboldt Campus Emergency Response Team (CERTs).

Currently there is a team of 30 active CERT members on campus. It is our goal to plan for another academy by the spring of 2009. The University is seeking applications from staff, faculty & student members to join CERT. All interested persons are encouraged to apply; just complete the Participant Application Form, obtain your manager/department chair's signature, and submit the form to Willie Bence, Emergency Management Coordinator, SBS 311.

Humboldt Campus Emergency Response Teams are self-contained, multi-purpose, 12-person units comprised of trained volunteer staff, faculty & students from many different departments and divisions. Each Team's members will automatically come together to meet and deploy as a unit following a major campus emergency (e.g. earthquake), working in coordination with Humboldt's Emergency Plan. CERT tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Executing light search and rescue; extrication of trapped persons
• Providing medical first aid and triage of the injured
• Preventing and suppressing incipient fires
• Supporting other emergency field operations

After selection, CERT members undergo 24 hours of nationally-standardized initial training (usually delivered on-campus in separate time blocks), followed by quarterly training sessions which focus on Humboldt-specific issues and requisite skills. The skills of the CERT members are further refined and their functions are integrated into campus emergency operations during disaster drills. The training and emergency drill participation is done during paid release time. Safety equipment is provided.

More information on CERT is available at FEMA.