Letter Re: CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) Training

Jim-
I’m just finishing up the nine-lesson [Citizen Corps] CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training. I highly recommend it. Besides the very good information on dealing with a variety of scenarios, I really like the heavy emphasis on taking care of yourself and your family first. This gets constant reinforcement. So though the training is intended to help you be useful as a first responder, it is even more useful in helping you harden up your home, yourself and your family members.
Of course it’s also a very good way to invite your neighbors into a local cohort group: instead of fending them off, you have a natural reason for engaging them in getting into CERT, and therefore themselves becoming more self-reliant as well. – Bob B.