How we help an urban area

[Eclipse]

UDF does not equal "mini-GTM", and people need to understand that.  While many of the tasks are shared with GTM, the intention and operational abilities are different for a reason.

If its dead by you, well, that's too bad - we get plenty of work up here, in fact the majority of day-to-day ELT missions (once you actually know the totality of the situation) are more appropriately geared to UDF than GTM's.  In most cases we spin a mixture of teams.

The single greatest thing about UDF from a "get involved" standpoint is that with two simple taskings, (basically a conversation about being called-up and some map tools in a baggie), a member is operationally qualified to participate in real missions and earn find ribbons.  Say what you want about uniform bling, but if you happen to catch the cycle and have a cadet (or senior) who get UDF-T and then within a reasonably short period nails a find, they are likely hooked on ES for life.

In 30 miuntes you can be ready and able to do what you joined to do, and then while doing it you can increase your real skills and quals.

As to CERT, like first responder classes, this is excellent complimentary training to the GT curriculum, however its not necessary for CAP members to assist along side of them.  There's no reason our people could not be typed on the same page with the CERT people and called up at the same time (though the NOC).

CERT is designed to be neighbors being self-sufficient and helping each other to relieve the burden on professional ES.  By no means is it a deployable force.

Trying to make CERT deployable turns it into something else which it is not intended to be.

[isuhawkeye]

everyone is so hyped up on CERT.  what ever happened to the red cross disaster cridentials including damage assessment,  shelter ops,  and others?

[floridacyclist]

I agree with you 100%. A CERT team is not supposed to be deployable and I have issues with some of the CERT teams in S FL who are buying trailers and comm equipment out the wazoo so they can become volunteer disaster responders; granted, they are also training far beyond the CERT training too.

I remember the days of 2-3 missions a week; that was fun but this is now. I lied earlier, our last mission wasn't 6 months ago, it was 4 months ago. My 12yo and his mother were asked by the AFRCC to help a fisherman turn his EPIRB off as he could not get it off and he swore that was the only EPIRB he owned. They went out and found an older unit in his shed that he said had been declared non-functional; needless to say, it wasn't.

We train to GT standards as even GT trainees can run UDF missions under the supervision of a UDF or GTL....which all of our active SMs are, and the cadets enjoy the training every bit as much if not more. My fear of concentrating on training everyone to UDF is that with 500,000 acres of National Forest in our backyard (and 300,000 more halfway across our group plus lots of other woods in between), if a plane goes down or a child goes missing, all we'll have is a bunch of polo-shirt-wearing UDF members that are only useful for shuffling papers or making coffee at the mission base. UDF has it's place, and it's a great job for someone who is not interested in wilderness operations, but like you said many (including those higher up who should know better) confuse it with GT and that just isn't so.

At the same time, the self-reliance, self-confidence, and leadership abilities developed in wilderness SAR and survival training will help in so many other ways down the road that are totally unconnected to the original training. The same attitude that helps a cadet finish a 2-day SAR/survival exercise will come in handy when they are faced with a 16-credit courseload, 2 term papers due, an overdue phone bill, and their car just broke down.

As for the CERT training itself, training our cadets to react immediately and properly in an emergency is not only good citizenship, it can have lifesaving implications as well. Too often when someone's life is in danger, many people stand there with their mouths hanging open while someone who has trained and thought about emergencies will react - hopefully correctly.

Bottom line is, it's all good.

everyone is so hyped up on CERT.  what ever happened to the red cross disaster cridentials including damage assessment,  shelter ops,  and others?

Right now, our local chapter is going through a political meltdown phase and cannot be counted on for training or anything else beyond basic disaster needs (if you look that up, no I am not related to Chris Floyd). I have been looking at those too since I took on squadron and then group ES, but we have certain people at Wing saying that we can't do those missions. I haven't been pushing it until we get back from our ride this Summer and can concentrate...hopefully the new 60-3 will help with some re-thinking. As a parent of two ARC volunteers (one who received the Youth Volunteer of the Year), I think RC is a perfect opportunity for cadets to help out in disasters.

Either way, before the meltdown, Red Cross was our primary local provider of CERT training as well since they had the grant money and always taught CERT as part of their Teen Disaster College.

[jimmydeanno]

everyone is so hyped up on CERT.  what ever happened to the red cross disaster credentials including damage assessment,  shelter ops,  and others?

I asked the local red cross chapter if those courses were available.  They told me that they don't offer half of them any more (can't verify if it's true, but that's what I was told).  We did shelter management as a squadron and psychological first aid, first aid/cpr/aed, etc.

Our local DEM director asked us to complete the training so that he could call on us as shelter managers and operators.  We get quite a bit of flooding during the spring and the shelters are usually opened for at least a few weeks.  This even occurs in our 'urban' areas.  Most of them have rivers that flow through them since they were at one time mill towns.  So the rivers overflow their banks.

I think that cadets can prove to be a great asset in DR doing things like shelter operation, assisting in sandbag placement, etc.  In times of emergency, I don't think it's so much, what can we do to make CAP the lead agency, as much as it is - what can I get my squadron trained in so we can help - even if CAP isn't officially involved, the members will be able to offer their skills individually.

[davedove]

everyone is so hyped up on CERT.  what ever happened to the red cross disaster credentials including damage assessment,  shelter ops,  and others?

I asked the local red cross chapter if those courses were available.  They told me that they don't offer half of them any more (can't verify if it's true, but that's what I was told).  We did shelter management as a squadron and psychological first aid, first aid/cpr/aed, etc.

Our local DEM director asked us to complete the training so that he could call on us as shelter managers and operators.  We get quite a bit of flooding during the spring and the shelters are usually opened for at least a few weeks.  This even occurs in our 'urban' areas.  Most of them have rivers that flow through them since they were at one time mill towns.  So the rivers overflow their banks.

I think that cadets can prove to be a great asset in DR doing things like shelter operation, assisting in sandbag placement, etc.  In times of emergency, I don't think it's so much, what can we do to make CAP the lead agency, as much as it is - what can I get my squadron trained in so we can help - even if CAP isn't officially involved, the members will be able to offer their skills individually.

I can't speak about your local unit, but the Red Cross does still offer the courses.  Now, often the names of the courses have changed.