112th Precinct Community Council

Community Emergency Response Team

Nov 15, 2004

Community Emergency Response Team
by Heidi Harrison Chain

In April, Barbara Stuchinski, Joe Hennessey, Bill Engel, and I attended a conference and learned that there are many things that individuals can do to help themselves in the event of an emergency. After the conference, the Precinct Council, the Forest Hills Civic and Community Board 6 jointly sponsored a forum on emergency preparedness so YOU can learn what YOU can do to help yourself and your neighbor. Over 250 people attended the forum.
At the conference in Albany we also learned about CERT training. Our Community was then selected to have CERT training. We are part of a pilot group. After that OEM will be training new groups from different Community boards throughout the City. We are very pleased and thank Borough President Marshall and Deputy Borough President Koslowitz that our group from CB6 was selected to be part of the pilot program. Our team members include many of you and other local volunteers. We are lucky to have a great team of neighborhood volunteers including members of the 112th Precinct Auxiliaries, members of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corp. , members of the Precinct Council, members of Community Board 6, members of the Forest Hills Community and Civic Association and members of Kidz Care. Our volunteers have different backgrounds and different skills. We have come together for a united cause for the good of our community. It is a wonderful commitment being made by each individual involved.
This is really a community effort. The first few training sessions were held at Grace Lutheran Church. The Church donated the use of their facilities. At the last session held at Grace Lutheran, Community Board 6 presented a Whitepot Certificate for Community Service to Pastor Haak. The rest of our sessions will be held at the Forest Hills Jewish Center. The Jewish Center is donating the use of their facilities.
The partnerships formed between our local government , our emergency management community and our volunteers is wonderful. We are being trained by the Office of Emergency Management, the FDNY and the NYPD. We have already had the 112th Precinct?’s help at one of our training sessions .and we thank them. This training is really fostering our community?’s strength as we join together in community service to keep our community strong and ready.
There will be training opportunities again in the future and you will be able to join us. The topics that we are learning about during this 12 week training are the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) CERT Course and additional topics geared specifically for New York City. The topics are: Neighborhood Preparedness, Fire Safety, Disaster Medical Operations , Light Search and Rescue, Urban environment ,Cert and Terrorism and Disaster Mental Health.
In December, there will be a disaster Simulation and our team will be able to practice some of the skills that we have learned.