Sunday, August 16, 2009

Exercise CAPitol CERTainty
By Richard Browne
Secretary, Calvert County Community Emergency Response Team

As the severe storm season kicks into high gear, volunteer organizations are coming together to operate as one team, and serve Calvert County.

On August 15th 2009, volunteers from throughout Calvert County will conduct a disaster response exercise, named CAPitol CERTainty. Members of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), the Calvert Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Calvert Amateur Radio Association (CARA) and other groups will join forces and respond to a simulated disaster in the Drum Point community of southern Calvert County. This will be the first time that multiple volunteer emergency services organizations will join forces to exercise their specialties and work together. They will demonstrate a portion of their disaster relief capabilities to support simulated tasking from the County Emergency Operations Center. Participants will be asked to respond to areas of simulated flood damage and survey the property and structures. This information would be used by County Emergency Planners and ultimately help the Governor make a “disaster area” declaration. If the damage is significant enough, a Presidential disaster area declaration can result in low interest loans and grants to help homeowners recover from the effects of the disaster.

As part of the exercise, CERT responders will be presented a variety of scenarios that will test their ability to perform damage assessment surveys, conduct light search and rescue, administer first aid, and other emergency response skills. Members of Civil Air Patrol squadrons from throughout Maryland, including the Prince Frederick Squadron, will offer assistance in several areas including conducting lost person search, electronic search for a missing boater, providing aerial imagery to support disaster planning and decision making and other specialties. The Calvert Amateur Radio Association will provide emergency communications from the disaster scene to the EOC. The Drum Point Property Owners Association (DPPOA) will be acting as host and will be coordinating the efforts of homeowners in their community. Members from all the volunteer organizations will staff an Incident Command Post and run the exercise from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Representatives from the Calvert County Office of Emergency Management will be on-site to observe the activities.

Planning for this landmark exercise began several months ago during a meeting of the County CERT organization. At that meeting, Lt. Col. Wes LaPre, Commander of Maryland’s Civil Air Patrol units from Baltimore south - and also a Calvert CERT member, discussed the similar capabilities of the two organizations and offered the opportunity for CAP and CERT to work together. As planning continued, additional volunteer emergency service organizations began to express interest in the idea. “We briefed the DPPOA on the idea and they were most receptive” noted LaPre. “They immediately obtained the approval to conduct this activity in their community and offered their facility as a base of operation,” he said.
Depending on the training and qualifications of the volunteers, the work done can range from a little to a lot. Volunteers that are part of an organized group can often do more because they will have trained and worked as a team,” LaPre said. “Practicing our emergency skills when there is no disaster helps make us better prepared to serve when we are called after a real disaster hits,” stated Lt. Col. John Johnson, Disaster Relief coordinator in the Maryland Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, and also a Disaster Assessment instructor for the American Red Cross.


Did you know that most of the severe storms that hit our area occurred in the month of September? Isabel (2003), Hanna (2008), Ernesto (2007), Floyd (1999), Fran (1996), all occurred in the month of September. “This is the perfect time to exercise the skills we would use to help our neighbors and our County emergency planners,” LaPre said.

Calvert CERT was started in 2005 by Sandy Simmons, Emergency Management Specialist for the County. Since then she coordinated and encouraged CERT member training and fielded over 100 team members throughout the County by enlisting the expertise local emergency management professionals including CERT volunteer coordinator Ron Gordy. CERT is a 20-hour training program that prepares members to help themselves, their family, and their neighbors in the event of a disaster.

During an incident, emergency services personnel may not be able to reach everyone right away. CERT volunteers will have the skills to help emergency responders save lives and protect property. Under direction of local emergency responders, CERT volunteers provide critical support by giving immediate assistance to victims, provide damage assessment and organize other volunteers. The role of a CERT volunteers is to help themselves and to help others until emergency personnel arrive.

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 56,000 members nationwide. CAP performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 90 lives in fiscal year 2008. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies.

CAP has been performing missions for America for more than 66 years. There are more than 1,400 members of CAP in Maryland. Last fiscal year wing members flew 42 search and rescue missions and were credited with 31 finds. For more information, visit http://www.mdcap.org/, http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/ , and http://www.co.cal.md.us/residents/safety/emergency/cccc/

For more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Lt. Col. LaPre contact him by phone at 301-717-3376 or by email at wlapre@hotmail.com.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

We had a great turn out for our November meeting. The Calvert Geo Cachers showed up and we all learned a little more about our GPS units , How fun Geo Cacheting is and how useful GPS are becoming in our everyday lives.

After the presentation from the Calvert Geo cachers we had a brief meeting and went over the up coming meeting .

Which is December the 18th @ the Phillips house in Prince Frederick Behind the old library. We will be having a little Christmas gathering nothing too serious just maybe some cookies , cake , something to drink. Something fun.


Everyone is bringing in something and Mary Yokem is the person coordinating this effort. so please feel free to E-mail her with what your able to bring in. her E-Mail is yokemmary@aol.com



We are continuing to seek more CERTS to get their HAM radio License The Calvert Radio Amateur Radio Club will be hosting this study/ class sometime in February or early march. I need to know how many people are interested as I need to order books and materials for you.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Meeting November 20th

Meeting November 20th 2008 at the old Phillips house 28 Duke St, Prince Frederick MD 20678
meeting starts at 7 pm we will have the Calvert County Geo Catchers giving us a presentation on GPS and fun and practical things you can do with GPS units. If you have one please Bring it to the meeting. it will be a fun night . Looking forward to seeing everyone there.