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ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

 

Emergency response teams are an extremely important source of help when a disaster strikes and recently, Liberal’s Community  Emergency Response Team (CERT) has been working hard training for just that.

“We are working on scheduling more Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) meetings and trainings, with one coming up in April, and that will be on a Friday evening running into that Saturday and concluding with an exercise that Sunday,” CERT Coordinator Tim Newman said. “The trainings are designed to impart some basic disaster preparedness skills, basic first aid/triage knowledge, disaster psychology, search and rescue, minimal fire suppression, a basic overview of terrorism, and those general skills so they can help should an emergency situation arise. We typically do the classes out at Seward County Community College in the Business & Industry building. So far, our CERT team has 20 members – we started with eight and then recently graduated 13 people, with 12 of them officially deciding to join the team. We have utilized the CERT members to help coordinate a warming shelter for the homeless people in the community since it's been so cold recently, and we don't want anyone to be left unsafe in such conditions. Some of our volunteers have helped with that, and we've also gotten volunteers from other groups and entities, including a couple churches, which is amazing. We also have a shelter class the Red Cross will be hosting Feb. 20, and that's open to anyone wanting to help run and staff a shelter situation. Anyone interested in participating in any of our classes/trainings, or even if they just want to know what we do, they're more than welcome to call me at (620) 626-3265 and I'll be glad to answer them. We've also recently done some tabletop exercises at the helium plant and a few other places, so we've been keeping pretty busy. We've also done some work with other local emergency response agencies, and they've all been great to work with in terms of all of that.”

With the team still being somewhat new, Newman said he is proud to see the team growing.

“I think it's great to see the team growing, we want as many people on the team as possible. When I was the CERT coordinator for Reno County, that team grew to almost 200 people,” Newman said. “As an official CERT member, you get a backpack of response equipment that includes a hard hat, vest and other tools and supplies so you can be of assistance should an emergency situation happen. The CERT team meets monthly to talk about what we want to do as far as different trainings and other work, and we'd love to grow the team by putting ourselves out there and participating in different community events. The CERT motto is 'Doing the most good for the most people,' and that's always our aim. I'm really proud of what we've been able to do so far, I think we've come a long way. The team here started I believe in 2022, but it never really got any traction due to a lack of leadership since the Emergency Management team is already busy with day-to-day operations. I'm working as the CERT coordinator, which leaves Greg [Standard] free to respond to other emergencies that happen throughout the area. We did appoint one of the CERT members as a future CERT coordinator, so he will be taking on more of those leadership responsibilities while some other stuff is going on in the county, but he and the team will still answer to Emergency Management. Something that was recently brought up was CERT people being in charge of traffic control for parades so the Liberal Police Department officers can be free to do other work. Like I said earlier, the more people we can recruit for the team, the more capable the team is going to be in terms of assistance.”

Anyone interested in joining the CERT program is more than welcome, Newman said, and he hopes to see the team continue growing as time goes on.

“Anyone is welcome to come to the meetings, and there's typically a lot discussed during those. We talk about team organization and structure and where everyone needs to go in the event of an emergency situation, and everyone has a role to play,” Newman said. “To officially become a member of the CERT team, there is an online training through the FEMA Web site, that's at https://community.fema.gov/PreparednessCommunity/s/cert-trainings?language=en_US, and if they take that, we'll accept them as a provisional team member. Then, when they take the in-person class, they'll be bumped up to a full member. When I worked in Reno County, there were more towns and communities than there are in Seward County, and we were able to have multiple CERT teams that each were in charge of a community, and in just Hutchinson, we were able to have a team stationed in certain areas of town so the entire community would be covered. I want this team to get to the point where there are enough people so we have a team in Kismet and multiple teams covering Liberal in sections. We want to be complementary to law enforcement and other emergency response when an emergency situation happens – we don't want to take control of everything, but we want to complement their efforts so they can focus on responding to the more severe needs since that’s what they’re trained for.”

Overall, Newman said, he is looking forward to seeing the team continue to evolve.

“We would welcome anyone and everyone to join us, and again, if anyone has any questions about what we do, they can call me and I'll be happy to help them get informed and help them get started,” Newman said.

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18th February, 2025 - 18:06
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