Citizen Emergency Teams (e.g. NET, CERT, NERT).
The links below are local resource and information pages which the SW Portland NETs are compiling. They cover issues concerning the operation and preparedness of our local NETs. Some of the information is specific to SW Portland, Oregon, while other pages are more generic may be a useful reference for any NET, CERT or NERT program in other areas.
Following a major disaster, such as an earthquake, severe weather or terrorist attack, the first responders are usually untrained citizens. Depending on the scope of the disaster, professional responders may not be able to make it to the scene for hours, days or even longer. In times like these, people naturally pull together and try to help one another. Unfortunately, many untrained rescuers end up losing their own lives trying to help others. With basic training, injury and loss of life can be significantly reduced, more people can be rescued, and the aid rendered can be more effective.
A citizen training program emerged from the California earthquakes of the 1980’s and have since gone international. Citizen Emergency Teams in the United States have several different names, but all are essentially the same program. Most commonly they are called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team), but are also know as NET (Neighborhood Emergency Team), and NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team). Here in Portland, we call it NET, but in most of the Portland’s surrounding communities, and at the national level, they are known as CERT.
Additional information may be found on the Pacific NW Earthquake Resource Page.
A Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) is a group of citizen volunteer emergency workers who have received basic training to work with your neighbors to save lives and property during the first 72 hours of any citywide emergency, when many neighborhoods will be on their own. The skills you’ll learn in the NET training will also help you manage emergencies that you may encounter in daily life.
To become a Portland NET member, you'll need to complete a total of 21 hours of basic training which consists of seven skill-building sessions. Topics covered include disaster preparedness, fire suppression, basic medical triage & operations, light search and rescue, and emergency team operations.
Whatever your background experience and physical abilities may be, the NET in your neighborhood needs you!
To register for the Winter 2006 NET training at OHSU, download and return the registration form. Space is limited.
Links:
†: Organic in that people will self-select which NET is easiest for them to get to; there are no hard-and-fast lines drawn ‡: The Red Cross does not see a problem with NETs operating out of schools, so the prohibition on using schools as staging areas has been rescinded.
This page is reserved for future use by the Ashcreek Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET). For more information about emergency preparedness, please refer to this page.
Our staging area is Smith School.
Recognizing that there are emergency preparedness situations which may not directly impact specfiic neighborhood, but rather SWNI, or the City of Portland as a whole, the SWNI Emergency Preparedness Committee has formed the SWNI NET Team. The SWNI NET Team will be available to respond to incidents such as floods, windstorms, public speaking requests and recruitment opportunities as requested by SWNI, POEM or Portland Fire Bureau.
Note: This is just a proposal. Your input is both solicited and appreciated.
The Southwest Emergency Preparedness Group is working on a communications plan to formulate “best practices” for communication between NET team members within a NET team and communication between neighboring NETs.SW NET Communication Plan. The basis for this document is the extensive work already done by the Multnomah NET, and in particular Chris Vardas and Gary St. Hilaire who shared what they have done to date.
POEM ⌠
Fire Station Centers (supported by ARES) ⌠
NETs – HAMS ⌠
Field NETs using FRS radios
Perhaps we should consider a test with different NETs in the area. I think this would be very valuable. And the only way we can do that is by testing some simplex frequencies since the repeaters may not be functional after a Cascadia quake. However it's wise to have some established repeaters to use and check on in the event of Cascadia just in case they are working.<!--break-->
We are tentatively meeting at 1830 (6:30pm) on Tuesdays on Frequency 146.980 (this frequency does require a CTCSS code-contact Chris Vardas for more information). We may move from this frequency soon if we confirm that we don't have privileges to use the repeater (we are trying to get resolution on this matter soon). Our back-up frequency, presently, is 145.230 which we go to after a few minutes of preamble and chat on the primary frequency listed above. Feel free to join us. We appreciate all input, experience and ideas on how to do this better.
The state net Tuesdays xxxxx @ 2000
The D1 net every evening 147.32+at 1930
The McARES net Wed 146.840+ @ 1900
There will be a link to the EOC plan when it is available.
This is from a thread on PDX NET, a forum for Portland NETs, and was posted on March 1, 2006, by Lawrence Behmer.
NET communications is something that is a current high priority in our office. Patty Hopkins, who is our training program coordinator, and I will be working on all the details of the communication plan and protocols over the next two to three weeks. The quick details of the plan are that 3 person teams (2 amateur radio operators and 1 support person) will respond, first to the staging area to check in with the team leader, and then to the nearest fire station. This is where the communications equipment will be kept and maintained. This will be the group that communicates to us at the EOC. An additional amateur radio operator will be based at the teams staging location. As teams are dispatched in the field (remember, 1 leader with a 5 to 7 person span of control) they will communicate (and document) all important information back to the radio operator and team leader at the staging area. That person will forward the info to the radio team at the fire station. That team will get the information to us at the EOC.
Teams that are in the field with no communication are to utilize a runner to get that information to the staging area.
There are 2 sets of frequencies to communicate on. One frequency for communication between NET's in the field, at the staging area, and the fire station.....and one for communication with the fire station team and the EOC.
If you're worried about your team not having an amateur radio operator or not enough of them, don't. We have an agreement with ARES who are a group of local amateur radio operators to respond to teams within the context of the plan. Furthermore, there are more radio trained NET's than you might think, but we'll always take more.
Again, all the little details are being worked out and this has been going according to schedule. Communications plans are always being tweaked based off of a plethora of possibilities; needs, technology changes, practicality, etc.
Develop a scheme where we set-up static and roving communications points around the border of our defined Multnomah boundaries. We attempted to communicate with one another and with a centrally located person at our primary staging area. From this first experiment, we got a pretty good idea what terrain problems we had and where there were gaps in communication. Topography (hills, trees and elevation definitions) pretty much limits our ability to communicate.
In addition, we defined a specific frequency and sub-channel (privacy code) that both the FRS and GMRS radio receivers can use. We have made FRS the standard radio that all NETs must provide in order to communicate. We publish the frequency & subchannel on each monthly newsletter.
All in all, I think we did determine that FRS was the best way to go for general NET usage simply because it was cheap, easily available, easy to replace batteries and works just as well as the more expensive GMRS (license required, too) radios. Despite the power, terrain pretty much rules the ability to communicate, especially on the hilly, westside. Choose a channel and subchannel that will work for your group. We choose channel 14, subchannel 7....with the hopes that this would isolate our conversation from the general public enough to give us a relatively quiet line from which to talk. Because of distance issues, we feel that use of that channel/subchannel could be used by other NET's just fine...with little likelihood that it would overlap our ability to communicate locally.
http://www.popularwireless.com/codetable.html is a link to a listing of CTCSS Compatability in FRS Radios.
Family Radio Service radios are the new walkie-talkies. Operating in the 462- to 468-MHz UHF band, they have a 2-mile range and don't require an FCC license.
the Family Radio Service (FRS) frequency range, which has 14 channels of its own. The radio also has 38 codes meant to eliminate interference and some basic privacy features, like voice scrambling to help reduce eavesdropping.
equipped to receive weather information broadcasts directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates a nationwide radio network of 560 transmitters that broadcasts nothing but weather reports 24 hours a day. Tune in and you're less likely to be surprised by rain. But the network is also the best source of information about natural disasters like tornados and earthquakes.
Pros and Cons
Three primary radio types:
| FRS | Family Radio Service: small pocket-style walkie talkies; inexpensive, readily available |
| GMRS | General Mobile Radio Service: moderately more expensive, requires $80 no-test FCC license/tax (License covers immediate family or business members) |
| HAM | FCC license required, test to obtain license |
| Brand | Model |
| Cobra | 250/300 |
| Cherokee | 465 |
| Midland | 75-510 |
| Motorola | Sport any |
| Motorola | Talkabout any |
| Radio Shack | 106 |
All radios should cover channels up through 14 and a minimum of 38 tones
Some channels 2-7 are restricted to GMRS
AA batteries are best…longest lasting, easy to replace, most common size
Possible sources for FRS radios
CERT training materials are available for download from the Citizen Corps Council website.
Additional resource information may be found on the Pacific NW Earthquake Resource Page.
LONDON (AlertNet) - In the aftermath of a sudden disaster, aid workers say the media often perpetuates certain myths and misconceptions about survivors and the best way to help them. Here are some of the myths that seasoned relief agencies want to debunk. MYTH: Disaster-hit people are too dazed and shocked to take responsibility for helping themselves and others. Reporters and photographers often portray survivors of a sudden disaster as helpless victims, unable to save themselves or each other. But according to the 2004 World Disasters Report, published by the International Federation of Red cross and Red Crescent Societies, in-depth reports from sudden disasters ranging from earthquakes to the collapse of New York’s twin towers show survivors rushing to save people from under the rubble – with their bare hands if necessary. Adeel Jafferi, media officer for Islamic Relief, described such proactivity in the immediate aftermath of Pakistan’s earthquake in October 2005: “Pakistan has never suffered an earthquake of this magnitude,” he told AlertNet in a telephone interview. “On the day it happened, ordinary people were rushing to aid victims, despite the shock they felt themselves. I saw people on the street who were completely out of their minds with fear, and yet when they saw the need to help people and heard the screams from under buildings, they ran immediately and started helping.’’ MYTH: The best international response is to send in rescue teams immediately. Not necessarily. Some experts say local teams are better placed to perform emergency relief operations in the first few hours after a disaster. Ibrahim Oxman, the director of the policy and relations division at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, says: “The knowledge and resilience of people at risk contributes far more to reducing the toll of disasters than many of us in the developed world may expect.” During Iran’s 2003 Bam earthquake, which destroyed 85 per cent of the city, local Iranian Red Crescent rescue teams were deployed within minutes, despite losing four team members and their headquarters in the earthquake. They saved 157 lives with just 10 dogs. In contrast, international search and rescue teams from 27 countries took up to two days to arrive. Although they were armed with sniffer dogs and remote sensing equipment, they saved just 22 lives. Aid agencies are usually under huge pressure to be seen to respond quickly. But there can be serious pitfalls associated with rushing in too fast. Donna Eberwine, the editor of Perspectives in Health, says: “A hasty response that is not based on a needs evaluation can contribute to the chaos. It is better to wait until genuine needs have been assessed. The local population almost always covers immediate life-saving needs.” According to the World Disasters Report 2004, it is essential for agencies to carry out in-depth interviews with affected people to find out their needs, even in situations where time is of the essence. If they don’t, they run the risk of sending the wrong type of help. Immediately after the Asian tsunami, for example, surgeons from all over the world poured into Banda Aceh in Indonesia. But they found that few survivors had been injured, and there was little for them to do. In contrast many aid agencies overlooked women’s needs. There was a severe shortage of midwives and basics including sanitary protection, the contraceptive pill and headscarves for Muslim women were not provided. MYTH: Dead bodies should be buried quickly to avoid disease The World Health Organisation is one of several agencies trying to end confusion over this particular myth. Immediately after a disaster local authorities and aid workers sometimes panic and bury people before they have been identified, fearing the decomposing bodies will spread disease. Arturo Pesigan, head of WHO's Emergency and Humanitarian Action in the Western Pacific, says dead bodies actually pose little risk. “Survivors, not the dead, are more likely to be the source of disease outbreaks,” he says, adding that “identification of the body and the normal process of grieving are essential” to help survivors recover from their personal losses. John Tulloch, a coordinator in New Delhi with the South Asia regional delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said immediately after the Pakistan earthquake: “It’s a disaster myth that dead bodies spread disease. Most bugs die within hours of the host, and it was one of the big tsunami myths. We saw especially in Aceh (in Indonesia) mass burials which caused enormous problems. It’s dreadfully traumatic for relatives because their bodies end up being dug up again.” The Pan American Health Organization also says mass burials should be avoided at all costs. It calls them “a violation of the human rights of the surviving family members”. MYTH: Survivors have lost everything except the clothes they stand up in. The best response is to give them second-hand clothes. After the Asian tsunami, Indians sent a mountain of clothing to survivors in southern India. But the fisher families, for whom the clothes were intended, refused to accept them. Although they are usually depicted as the poorest of the poor, the 2005 World Disasters Report says they are a relatively prosperous and proud community. Even in such dire circumstances, they would not accept second-hand clothes. The unwanted clothes were dumped on roadsides, and municipal workers had to be diverted from the relief effort to gather them up. They also proved a hazard to local livestock, which tried to eat them. And food was sent from overseas. But the shipments included wheat and cooked foods from outside the region, neither of which were suitable to local tastes and which became a health hazard when they were dumped. Ebrahim Mohamed, head of British relief agency Muslim Aid, said after the Pakistan earthquake in October 2005: “We’ve been getting all sorts of offers of used clothing, and food. We tell people very nicely that getting this there is very costly. Money is the best way of getting this across. And it helps local economies.’’ MYTH: The best way Westerners can help children who have been orphaned in a disaster is to adopt them. In most cases, children’s extended families, friends and neighbours will take them in. Unicef reported that almost all the 10,000 children orphaned in the Asian tsunami had been adopted locally within two months. By late February only 60 children were left without foster parents. MYTH: The best way to help survivors is to put them in temporary settlements. Aid professionals say this should be avoided as much as possible. Donna Eberwine, the editor of Perspectives in Health, says: ‘’It should be the last alternative. Funds may be better spent on building materials, tools and other construction-related support in the affected country.” The Asian tsunami showed how most survivors found shelter with host families, rather than being dependent on aid camps.
Stewart Brand wrote after the 1989 earthquake, in a Whole Earth essay titled “What Rescuers Learned.” The whole essay is sadly available nowhere online, but these bullet points (logged by Gmoke in an earlier WC post) pretty well sum it up:And this from ibiblio:It's worth noting, as well, that self-starting isn't just some great idea for wealthy folks with a lot of expensive tools lying around: ordinary people are the best, and often the only, first-responders wherever disaster strikes. Helping each other without permission from the proper authorities is what it's all about.
- Right after an earthquake, nobody's in charge. You self-start, or nothing happens
- Collect tools!
- If you can smell gas, turn it off.
- After an earthquake, further building collapse is not the main danger. Fire is.
- When you see a fire starting, do ANYTHING to stop it, right now.
- In a collapsed building, assume there are people trapped alive. Locate them, let them know everything will be done to get them out.
- Searching a building, call out, “Anybody in here? Anybody need help? Shout or bang on something if you can hear me.”
- Give people who are trapped all the information you've got, and enlist their help. treat them not as helpless victims but as an exceptionally motivated part of the rescue team.
- Join a team or start a team. Divide up the tasks. Encourage leadership to emerge.
- Most action in a disaster is imitative. Most effective leadership is by example.
- Bystanders make the convenient assumption that everything is being taken care of by the people already helping. That's seldom accurate.
- If you want to help, ask! If you want to be helped, ask!
- Volunteers are always uncertain whether they're doing the right thing. They need encouragement - from professionals, from other volunteers, from passers-by.
I'm reminded of a similar list (at a slightly different scale) in a Whole Earth Review article by Stewart Brand -- “Learning from the Earthquake” (WER #68, Fall 1990). It's a first person account and analysis of “the crucial difference of volunteers” in the 1989 Loma Prieta (SF Bay Area) quake. A few of the items from the “What Rescuers Learned” summary:And the “Collect Tools!” list: These are some of the tools that have proven useful for earthqake search and rescue and for fighting fires while they're still small:
- Right after an earthquake, nobody's in charge. You self-start, or nothing happens.
- Collect tools!
- When you see a fire starting, do ANYTHING to stop it, right now.
- Join a team or start a team. Divide up the tasks. Encourage leadership to emerge.
- If you want to help, ask! If you want to be helped, ask!
- Gas-powered [chain] saws
- Hand saws
- Axes
- Ladders
- Crow bars and pry bars
- Wrenches for gas valves
- Flashlights, miner's lights, lanterns, extra batteries
- Portable generator and power tools and work lights
- Jacks, blocks, and shoring material such as 4x4 lumber
- Rope
- Shovels
- Work gloves, boots
- Loud hailers
- Buckets
Note: This is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be construed as medical advice nor as CPR training. Furthermore, this technique was not sanctioned by the American Heart Association in their 2005 Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care. The AHA did, however, take the unusual step of pre-publishing information about the technique on their website ahead of their printed journal to make the information more quickly available. (AHA article link at the bottom of this page.)A new CPR technique is said to dramatically increase survival rate for adult (over 15 yo) cardiac arrest victims. Survival rate for out-of-hospital witnessed cardiac arrest is nearly tripled by the technique called “cardiocerebral resuscitation” (CCR). Not only is CCR more effective, it is simpler and more people may be inclined to render aid. Many people are reluctant to perform mouth-to-mouth on a stranger, but would probably be willing to perform CCR, so additional lives might be saved. There are two situations where CPR applies: cardiac arrest and respiratory arrest. “Sudden unexpected collapse in an adult is almost always due to cardiac arrest,” explains Gordon A. Ewy, MD, director of the Sarver Heart Center. “The new approach is not recommended for respiratory arrest, a much less common situation.” Respiratory arrest is usually the result of drowning, choking, asthma, lung problems, or drug overdose. In these cases, or if the victim is a child, traditional CPR is still recommended. Also, this technique is only recommended for witnessed arrests (as this increases the likelihood the arrest is cardiac, not respiratory). The new approach emphasizes fast, forceful chest compressions over airway management. The most important factor for survival of cardiac arrest patients is to keep the blood moving through the body by continuous chest compressions. Ventilating the victim by mouth-to-mouth respiration is far less important. Dr. Ewy explains: “Stopping chest compressions for ventilations is far more harmful than helpful.” The theory is that it takes about 15 compressions to build up enough pressure to circulate the blood. If you stop, the pressure drops almost immediately. Dr. Ewy puts it bluntly: “excessive interruptions are lethal.” When a victim falls, the blood is already well oxygenated. The primary concern is to move the blood. Furthermore, many victims will gasp, so some self-ventilation may be occurring. Dr. Ewy writes:
Some of the major unanswered questions are as follows: When is ventilation mandatory during prolonged cardiocerebral resuscitation? Ventilation is probably mandatory after 15 minutes of chest compression only in patients who are not gasping. This needs to be studied. If one is willing to do mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing for witnessed cardiac arrest, what is the best compression-to-ventilation ratio? One of our studies suggests that it might be continuous chest compressions for the first 4 minutes, follow by 1 or 2 ventilations before each set of 100 compressions.The essential steps are these: