DR training

[Walkman]

We just had a tornado warning in my area and that reminded me of last month's tornadoes in the Midwest. I'm doing a block of ES with my cadets tomorrow night and was wondering if anyone has some ideas for doing DR ground training we could do?

[NCRblues]

In my area, we love to do mock DR shelters.

On a certain weekend you spin up each squadron (or all the people in your squadron) and tell them to report to so and so area at so and so time to start DR work.

We then check off required gear and set out our teams on tasks.

We have a great relationship with the Guard around here so they give us cots other things like that.

We set our teams out to set up an in processing station, a fire plan, a security plan and so forth and so on. Lots of table top, but the cadets seem to eat it up.

At the end we have someone from the state EMA come in and grade our ops plans and give feedback. We have even had USAMRIID docs come in and see if they could use our set up and personnel in a situation they would respond to. It is a great time and experience.

[ol'fido]

You might check with your local EMA, ARC, etc. and see if there are any Disaster Preparedness pamhlets or packets  that they give out for free to help people prepare. Pick a neighborhood for each team and have them go door to door handing out the pamphlets. Make sure you let the originating agency for the materials know what you are planning. Make sure that the teams are in uniform and maybe have a "canned" speech to explain who you are and what you are handing out. Have the teams record the adresses down that they visited and whether anybody was at home. This would simulate making welfare checks after a disaster.

[Walkman]

Good ideas guys. I'll put those in my back pocket for later. I was going for something I could put together on my own for tonight. No worries, I'll think of something.

[LTC Don]

1. You can undertake Points of Distributiton training, in getting water/food/ice/tarps, etc. (commodities) distributed to the general public.  Typically these ops are done in partnership with your local emergency management agency (LEMA).  Go here for more info: http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is26.asp 

2. Begin pushing your people to become Skywarn certified through the National Weather Service.  CAP has a vested interest in knowing weather, especially severe weather, and the NWS has an excellent program for this, and will come to you to teach.  Go here for more info: http://skywarn.org/  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/skywarn/

On a side note, an absolutely fabulous program, that every cadet group should be working with as a unit project, is the CoCoRaHS program.  Go here for more information on this: http://www.cocorahs.org/  <Again, CAP has a vested interest in being smart about weather.

3. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) - This is the 'ground team' of DR (IMHO), and should be aggressively pursued for GT personnel to cross train or for CAP members to become qualified in.  More info here: http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/  <Being a program run through Citizencorps.gov via Dept of Homeland Security, the program structure takes some creative thought to make it work for CAP at the wing level, but it can be done.  Here in NC, we are working on a 'regional concept' for deploying CERT assets in different parts of the state, and are working with our state em agency closely to try to make this work.  But, its still up to the local units to get the training, and establish the local relationships and sponsorships with their LEMAs.  There are many civilian CERT groups out there that need followup training as well, and are always looking to partner with other agencies.   CAP just needs to get out of it's little sandbox and decide to play with others.


Bottom line - In order to be successful with DR, you have to communicate with your LEMA and talk their talk, not CAP talk.  They know FEMA, and the ICS systems; you have to do the same.  They don't know, nor care about such things as 'Ground Teams', or '101 cards' or such terminology.

NC Wing is working heavily in all of the above (and then some) and has become a major mission focus for us.