Has anyone heard of the CERT program? (Community Emergency Response Team). It was developed in CA for the earthquake problem and we have it now in Miami to deal with hurricanes. We are training as many neighborhood teams as possible in order to use them to bring cohesion and cooperation to local neighborhoods during the millennial transition. Each team recieves emergency medical training, training in search and resuce, triage, fire suppression and desaster psyhcology. The county (Miami-Dade) has been to have 100 of these teams in action in local neighborhoods by years end. We are using our CERT team to network our own neighborhood and to encourage preparation.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), November 17, 1999

Answers

No hable Ingles...en espanol, por favor?

-- manny (manuel@noriega.com), November 17, 1999.

JoseMiami: I would have hoped that more along these lines would be occurring in my area (eastern Iowa). But just about everyone here is convinced that there is no need for such a program based upon Y2K concerns. They may be right of course, but preparedness is not about certainty.

I've taken CPR training not because I know I'll need to use it but rather because I want to have that tool in my toolbox should I ever come across a situation that requires it.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), November 17, 1999.

We had the good fortune to have the CERT program in place for the 'world series' earthquake. It really helped the neighborhood focus and function in a positive way during it and later disasters. If it's not too late, and you have the opportunity to avail yourself of this program - I highly recommend it.

-- flora (***@__._), November 17, 1999.