About Emergency Teams

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.

Portland’s Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NET)

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:

NET Redistricting, Book II

We have been talking about NET Redistricting for a few months now. Here is an update on the latest planning which has emerged from the All-hands NET Gathering in August, and the September Emergency Preparedness meeting, going into the Team Leader meeting in late October. Our thinking to date has these main features:
  1. For staging areas and team operations, ignore arbitrary boundaries (e.g. FMA & Neighborhood Association); observe topographic boundaries
  2. Observe FMA boundaries for emergency communications and logistical purposes (some teams may have to work with more than one fire station)
  3. Identify the locations of existing NET members using the large map in SWNI office
  4. Team Leaders and interested parties to assemble in late October to identify staging areas and new NETs
  5. Individuals self-select which NET is best for them
  6. Coordinate with POEM and Fire to implement new system

Discussion

Fire Management Area (FMA) boundaries, while somewhat better than Neighborhood Association boundaries for defining NETs, are still not sufficiently attuned to our topographical needs to be useful to us. Furthermore, with the relocation of Station 18, and the eventual construction of Station 21, those boundaries are certain to change at least once, perhaps more, in the next four years. The Gabriel Park area is a perfect example why neither neighborhood boundaries nor FMA boundaries are practical for us: 45th & Vermont is the nexus of three neighborhood associations (Multnomah, Maplewood & Hayhurst) and two FMAs (18 & 5). The NE corner of Maplewood is topographically isolated from the Maplewood NET staging area. The park lies within Multnomah neighborhood association, but is not Multnomah NET’s primary staging area. Hayhurst NET’s staging area is across Vermont street from the park and most of their NET members reside close to the park, but they are prohibited from operating there if we respect either neighborhood boundaries or FMA boundaries. Furthermore, most of the NET members in the area are in Hayhurst. So Hayhurst can’t use the park as a staging area, and Multnomah will be elsewhere. But if you ignore these arbitrary boundaries, the park looks like the perfect staging location for that area. So our plan is to generally ignore FMA boundaries – except for logistical matters and emergency communications, which must be to the appropriate fire station – and create our own organic† boundaries based on topographical features. We have a large map of the SW (which is currently in the SWNI office) and hope to mark every NET member’s location on the map as a purple or blue dot. We hope that individuals will mark their location, and team leaders will mark the location of their team members, on the map. Once the map is marked with every NET member’s location, we feel staging areas will more or less present themselves. More than likely, these will be the parks, schools‡ and churches near the clusters of the purple and blue dots on the map. Very likely, these will coincide with most of our current staging areas. The most significant difference is likely to be who is on which team, so team sizes may be impacted. Under the old system, some people literally had to travel a mile or two to get to their officially assigned staging area while another staging area was literally across the street from them. The new system eliminates this, as well as teams of one or two people (as they will become members of a larger team). No longer will we create a NET and wait until it grows large enough to identify a staging area. The new system works the other way around. As our SW NET membership grows, it will be possible (in the future) to identify new staging areas, spawning a new NET, and better serving our communities.
†: 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.

Suggestions made and questions raised at the September EP meeting:

  • Can people choose to be a member of more than one NET?
  • We need to make available a list of staging areas for the region.
  • We should develop a sign, similar to SW Trails signs, which mark designated staging areas.

Comments and Questions

Please post your comments or questions here. This page is intended as an electronic forum for discussing this redistricting plan. You must be registered with the system to post comments. Registration is free.

Ashcreek NET

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.

Proposed Mission Statement for the SWNI NET Team

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.