In the event of a wide-spread natural disaster such as a hurricane or a man-made emergency such as a terrorist attack, it may take several days before emergency services reach your neighborhood and your family. Do you know how to ensure the safety of your family while waiting for help?

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program is a national program that prepares people for emergency situations in their communities and neighborhoods. It was developed to bring citizens together and train them to recognize, respond and recover from a major emergency or disaster situation.

JaxCERT training provides Duval County residents basic disaster-response skills necessary to address the urgent needs of their community when professional first responders and emergency personnel are not immediately available.

Once trained, JaxCERT members are able to provide the following services to their neighborhoods:

• increase their neighborhood's disaster preparedness 
• assess damage after a disaster
• extinguish small fires and teach fire safety
• perform light search and rescue operations
• perform triage and provide minor medical service to the injured
• organize as a team 

A CERT team is your neighbors and business colleagues who, following training, initiate neighborhood or business teams whose actions make a difference.

The basic training series is held at the Duval County Emergency Operations Center at 515 North Julia Street in downtown Jacksonville. The series consists of eight classroom courses, followed by a field exercise and graduation ceremony at the Fire Academy. Twenty-five total training hours are required.

Who is JaxCERT training for?

• Individuals who are interested in disaster preparedness activities within their neighborhood organizations
• Veterans and military personnel 
• Safety personnel or human resources staff
• Members of other Citizen Corps programs, such as Neighborhood Watch, Volunteers in Police Service or Medical Reserve Corps
• Members of ARES, Civil Air Patrol
• SHADCO and CPAC members
• Faith-based disaster volunteers
• Area school personnel

For more information, contact Laura Black at 630-7885 or lblack@coj.net.