JBSA-FORT SAM HOUSTON –
Through a community partnership initiative with the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management and 502nd Air Base Wing emergen¬cy management, the first Community Emergency Response Team is being formed at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Hous-ton to handle emergen¬cies and disasters.
An incident like a hurricane hitting the installation could affect thousands of people liv¬ing in post housing, as well as military mem¬bers, civilian employees and students in schools and attending training.
Creation of the CERT also supports the Depart¬ment of Defense "Amer¬ica's PrepareAthon," a grassroots campaign to increase community pre¬paredness and resilience, according to Lt. Col. Darrell Small, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston CERT pro¬gram manager.
DOD-wide participa¬tion in the national preparedness campaign was encouraged to help active duty, civil¬ian personnel and their families prepare for specific hazards through drills, group discussions and exercises. JBSA-Fort Sam Houston served as the pilot program for implementation through¬out the joint base.
The first JBSA-Fort Sam Houston CERT exercise was held April 27-30 at the U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters on Stanley Road. Cadre consisted of active duty and wounded warriors assigned to Warrior Transition Units.
The exercise goal was to ensure JBSA-Fort Sam Houston could be sustained independently of the community for approximately 72 hours during an emergency, or until help arrives from first responders.
In addition, service members assigned to warrior transition units participated in the Operation War Fighter Emergency Management internship project, which provides career options and possible job op¬portunities for wounded warriors transition out of military service.
"We are here to train cadre so that they can then be the trainers for DOD and do the same thing that my office is doing for them, such as providing instructors and building an exercise," said Scott Paul, a CERT master instructor and Citizen Corps Council Coordinator for the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management. "The CERT program helps communities prepare for anything up to a large catastrophic event like a hurricane or tornado."
Paul, along with Fred Reyna, a volunteer services specialist and regional CERT coordina¬tor for the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management, served as the lead trainers and conducted classes in fire and utility control, drill exercises that included light search and rescue operations, the use of fire extinguishers to extinguish small fires and instructor training.
"We are hoping to build a cadre of individu¬als that can take care of on-post disasters at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, JBSA-Lackland, JBSA-Camp Bullis and JBSA-Randolph," Paul said. "We are trying to train enough volunteer responders so that if we have any kind of an event on a military installation, there is some capacity to assist first responders."
"CERT is not something new to the non-military community," Small said. "It is a nationally recog¬nized disaster volunteer program established by the Department of Home¬land Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency and is widely implemented throughout the country by local com¬munity volunteers.
The CERT course teaches students to keep themselves safe while helping others; to identify and anticipate hazards; reduce fire hazards in the home and workplace and to use a fire extinguisher to put out small fires.
Training also includes assisting emergency re¬sponders; conducting light search and rescue; setting up medical treatment areas; applying basic first aid techniques and help¬ing reduce stress as they participate in a series of hands-on training drills, disaster exercises and tabletop discussions.
"I'm a medical plan¬ner and my past training helped with our situations and scenarios. I got a lot out of it," said Lt. Col. Arnold Leeks, a trainer and team leader. "What's challenging for a team leader is working with people you have never worked with before. I think we did an outstand¬ing job and I see the pro¬gram itself being a value added to the installation in the near future."
"I'm getting ready to retire and looking for something after I leave the military," said Army Master Sgt. Luis Lopez, a wounded warrior with the Army Medical Command mobilization office. "This is something that defi¬nitely needs to be here and I like that wounded warriors are included. It is a great program and needs to be established throughout JBSA."
CERT teams provide critical support by giving immediate assistance to victims, providing damage assistance information and organizing other vol¬unteers at a disaster site.
"Ideally, when we get done with this, all JBSA locations should have CERT response teams," Paul said.
"The exercise was a chance to test cadre and gave us an opportunity to step back and look how they embraced their training," Small said. "They have taken owner¬ship of it, they are excited about it and that is what we are looking for in terms of trainers."