Emergency Responder

[BillB]

There is a thread on LINKEDIN on CAPs role as Emergency Responder. The question is what training does CAP do for an Emergency Responder role? I'm not talking about emergency medical services, but rather the role of CAP following hurricanes, tornados or other disasters. Seems like most training deals with ground search in the woods or aerial search and photography. How many Squadrons take part in local Emergency Managers training programs? What is the role or roles of CAP as Emergency Responders?
Emergency Responders is a role of CAPs Emergency Services, but National has not provided a standardized training program. Add to this FEMAs  prohibition of using cadets under 18 for most activities, can anyone define the role of CAP? Since National hasn't provided training in this aspect of Emergency Services, it is up to each Squadron to find out where they can serve. This means contact and training through local Emergency Managers. I checked with three County Emergency Managers in Florida. All three said they have not had any contacts with CAP as to CAP capabilities or roles in Emergency Response. Two said while they know about CAP, from FEMA training and newspapers, they had never been contacted. One said CAP could be useful in distribution of MREs, ice and water following a disaster, but CAP never came forward. All three said CAP has never taken part in disaster training at the local level.
Maybe after a storm such as Kitrania, CAP was active, but how long did it take for CAP to step forward? What effrort did CAP take following Sandy on the ground? Where and when did local squadrons take emergency response training? These are the questions CAP must face at Squadron, Wing and National levels.

[Texas Raiders]

I believe that a lot of frustration stems from a lack of education and clarity on the part of not only the agencies/people that we want to assist, but CAP itself.  While the orginial post concentrates on disaster relief, I think CAP should take step back and address the whole ES mission.  There are recent discussions here in this forum that demonstrate smiliar concerns with regard to SAR.   People can't understand why CAP isn't used more often.  What is CAP's role and mission capbilities in regard to ES?  For instance, I've always understood CAP to concentrate on "aviation related" SAR (meaning- When a plane goes down, CAP goes and finds it.).  Anything else was regarded as "assisting other agencies".  If that's true, then CAP has really pigeonholed itself into a very specific area, which may be a contributing factor to the limited use of CAP in SAR.  It's difficult to use a service if you don't know what it can do for you, how to use it, or that it even exists in the first place (it's even more difficult when your own membership can't properly answer those questions).  Part of the cure for that is a responsibility shared from the top down to the squadron level ESOs.  We must establish relationships with agencies on all levels, educate them on our capabilities and resources, demonstrate proficiency and consistency, and build a reputation of professionalism, reliability, and competence.  However, it is my feeling that we must have a clear definition of CAP's roles and mission capabilities from the top before we can pursue those goals.

Keep in mind that this is all just food for thought and discussion. 

http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/about/civil_air_patrols_three_primary_missions/emergency-services/

[Eclipse]

BillB - there's way too many questions and predispositions in your OP to have a coherent discussion, but we've been
addressing this issue here for years even up to the last few days.

We absolutely are "emergency responders".  Our ground team training establishes members as self-sustained assets that can be deployed into
austere environments and DA's for 24-72 hours on reasonable notice.  The skills of self-sufficiency and general understanding allows them to
function as support assets in just about anything we could be asked to help with.  Same goes for our ICS training - in a lot of cases, we have
as much or better ICS training, experience, and ability then professionals in the same room - a lot of agencies, PD especially, get involved in
ICS because they "have to", and give it only a cursory due.

CAP lacks a DR doctrine that would formalize our role in the same way that our air ops and ground SAR are structured.  However when you understand
the hows and why's of SAR/DR, DR especially in the patchwork of the national ES response framework, you understand that there isn't any
single answer to this.  Heck, even FEMA is told to go home sometimes by misguided local agencies looking to maintain control (and $$$).

Bottom line -

AFRCC will not call for CAP assets except for life-safety SAR and only after localized assets have been exhausted (and the proper requests made).

1AF is in charge of using us for HLS and similar missions, and their involvement is for national-scale events like Sandy.

Anything smaller requires local coordination and agreements, and those need to be happening well before the rain starts falling.
If your wing isn't involved in DR at a level you are comfortable with, look to better engagement at the municipal and county level.

And as an aside, the last place I'd ever consider having a discussion like this is Linked in, but people do what they will do...