TEEN CERT Trains Students In Disaster Preparedness and Response

As the weekend of April 30 approached, the forecast called for severe thunderstorms Friday evening and continue sporadically through Sunday. Friday evening, the class of nearly one hundred Boy and Girl Scouts, including adult leaders, parents, siblings and friends sat anxiously awaiting the start of an unprecedented training event. It would be the single largest TEEN CERT class ever assembled and would be taught completely outdoors. Friday night started off windy, but by 8pm the torrential rain beating on the roof of the pavilion became so intense that the instructors needed to shout to be heard.

Four Boy Scout and two Girl Scout troops participated in the emergency preparedness and response training at Indian Camp Creek Park in northern St. Charles County. The specialized training provided students the skills necessary to perform under pressure by developing multi-functional response teams that supplement community emergency services during major disasters. The St. Charles County Teen Community Emergency Response Team (TEEN CERT) program is made up entirely of volunteer citizens and is more than 230 members strong.

While many people will respond to others in need without any training, one goal of the TEEN CERT program is to help these citizens do so effectively and efficiently without placing themselves or others in unnecessary danger. With the mandatory 20-hours of training, students learn to manage utilities and put out small fires, and treat the three medical killers by opening airways, controlling bleeding, and treating for shock. TEEN CERT also trains students how to provide basic medical aid, search for and rescue victims safely, organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective, and collect disaster intelligence to support first responder efforts.

Because the program is not based within any particular city or municipality, but registered as countywide in St. Charles, St. Louis and Lincoln, the TEEN CERT program does not qualify for state funding or Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grants through the St. Louis Area Regional Response System (STARRS). The program is free of charge to anyone wanting the training and operates entirely without a budget or funding. The popularity of the St. Charles County program has grown and is out-performing many of the programs that receive local, state and private funding.

Last year, the Boy Scouts of America and US Department of Homeland Security teamed up to develop an initiative called “Emergency Preparedness BSA” as part of the BSA’s 100th anniversary. The Greater St. Louis Area Council BSA and district executives requested the support of the St. Charles County TEEN CERT program to pilot the more advanced emergency preparedness training program to Scouts from the Boone Trails District. With the help of firefighters, paramedics, doctors, and other qualified instructors, the program teaches medical, fire safety, and search and rescue. In addition, the St. Charles program has a very gifted crisis counselor who teaches the psychology aspect of an emergency to the participants.

From the pilot Boy Scout TEEN CERT training that is happening in the Boone Trails District of the Greater St. Louis Area Council, other districts, groups and organizations are requesting the assistance of the TEEN CERT program. The team portion of the curriculum is stressed and expanded on to allow the students a chance to build trusts and share ideas. This can also help individual schools with trained TEEN CERT program graduates to determine if they want to incorporate the program into the school’s Emergency Operation Plan (EOP) as a team or simply for individual student’s education.

The program has three major goals: First, it provides students with a knowledge base on the effects of natural and man-made disasters and their emotional, social, and economic impacts. Secondly, it aims to build decision-making and problem solving skills and strategies to help students make informed decisions regarding readiness, response and recovery and mitigation efforts to reduce loss of life and property. Lastly, the program provides students with hands-on training using reality-driven drills and exercises.

The St. Charles County TEEN CERT program is recognized as a model for other CERT and disaster response and preparedness programs around the nation. The program is open to anyone 12 years and older, including adults. It is the same program as the adult CERT course, but includes a great deal more information and emphasis on team building and emotional health.

Local Boy Scouts Train in Disaster Preparedness

Boone Trails District Boy Scout Troop 390 hosted TEEN CERT training and now, 26 new Scouts are educated about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trained in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations.

Scoutmaster David Merriott enlisted the assistance of St. Charles County TEEN CERT program coordinator Mark Rosenblum to bring the program to his Scouts. Utilizing the professional expertise of several instructors, including Lincoln County Fire District Chief Michael Cherry (who taught the fire suppression and cribbing sections), the training was completed over a weekend campout at Cuiver River State Park.

Not only did the Scouts complete TEEN CERT, they also earned a couple of merit badges, including Emergency Preparedness and First Aid, and are eligible to earn Safety and Fire Safety. In addition, they completed the requirements for the Boy Scouts Emergency Preparedness BSA award.

Teen Community Emergency Response Team (TEEN CERT) training and Scouting make a great partnership, and there are numerous ways to involve Scouting in preparing for emergencies. Local emergency managers and other public safety officials can utilize scarce resources while promoting emergency preparedness within their communities.

Both TEEN CERT and Emergency Preparedness merit badge require students to take part in a simulated disaster drill. During the recent TEEN CERT training, Scouts were deployed to assist Lincoln County Fire District search for and rescue a lost camper in the heavily wooded area of the park.

During an actual disaster, Scouts trained in TEEN CERT can help triage patients and provide first aid, as well as other valuable services. In addition, these young adults can perform crowd and traffic control, serve as runners, help with collection and distribution of needed items, and assist in setting up shelters and serving food.

Because of the higher level of training that TEEN CERT provides to Scouts, they could be a valuable resource to support emergency personnel in major events, such as floods, tornadoes, hazardous materials incidents, severe thunderstorms, winter storms, house fires, and many other natural or man-made hazards.

To learn more about the TEEN CERT program, contact Mark Rosenblum at 636-332-0790 or mark.rosenblum@juno.com.

Hundreds Honor American Flag during Annual Boy Scout Flag Retirement Ceremony

Our CERTs had the distinct honor of being invited to participate in the 6th Annual Flag Retirement Ceremony on Sunday, June 7th at T. R. Hughes Ballpark in O'Fallon, Missouri.

About 1,500 worn, tattered or torn American flags were retired during the ceremony. As many of the flags came from area businesses and homes, there were several flags that had been flown outside the U.S. with almost 100 flags from U.S. embassies or consulates that were retired.

The public was invited to attend and before the official ceremony began, there were a couple of weather-related delays that forced everyone to seek shelter inside the ballpark. There were displays from the various branches of the military and music from the St. Charles County Choral Arts Society.

The ceremony location was new this year. T. R. Hughes Ballpark offered ample parking facilities for the event which grows larger each year. Even though the event is hosted by O'Fallon Boy Scout Troop 858, there is participation from a great many scout troops from several other communities. This event is considered to be one of the largest single Boy Scout flag retirement ceremonies in the country to be held in one day.

In a long but beautifully moving ceremony that began “I am your Flag. I was born on June 14, 1777. I am more than cloth shaped into a design. I am the refuge of the world's oppressed people. I am the silent sentinel of Freedom. I am the emblem of the greatest sovereign nation on earth...”, hundreds of uniformed scouts and guests honored and showed respect to our flag in this formal military style celebration.

Exercise drill helps prepare community for possible disasters

By Mark Rosenblum

April 7, 2009 2:32PM CST

St. Charles County, MO - United States of America (Press Release) April 7, 2009 --

Early on the cold, rainy morning of March 28, a small airplane headed for Spirit of St. Louis Airport, was brought down by severe weather in the O’Fallon Sports Park off of Highway K in O'Fallon, Missouri.

Not really, but this was the “real-time” simulated scenario for the annual St. Charles Countywide disaster exercise. Numerous emergency teams, first responders and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members were given the opportunity to practice and refine their emergency procedures. While emergency crews worked through their disaster plan, police cadets, school students and adults learned what the patients go through in these situations by playing the role of the victims.

The exercise, officially named "Operation Road Warrior", tested the county’s CERT, emergency responders and mutual aid providers in stress-filled environment in which personnel, equipment and other resources are deployed and mobilized.

St. Charles County disaster response participants include CERT members from St. Charles City, Cottleville, Dardenne Prairie, O’Fallon, St. Charles County TEEN CERT, St. Peters/Central County, Weldon Spring, and Wentzville. There were participants from other cities including Maryland Heights, Black Jack, Independence, Town & Country, Kirkwood and Eureka.

With more than 200 participants including nearly 60 volunteers playing victims, family members and news media, the county's first ever “real-time” deployment call-out exercise is being considered one of the largest full-scale drills organized among all previous exercises in the St. Louis/St. Charles metropolitan area. More than 20 organizations participated, including the O’Fallon Police and Fire Department; St. Charles County Ambulance District, other municipal fire and law enforcement agencies; Crider Center for Mental Health, St. Charles County Department of Emergency Management, St. Charles County Citizen Corps Council, as well as the regions first TEEN CERT, and other mutual aid organizations.

This exercise was an important educational tool not only for the CERT members for whom the drill was designed but also for the volunteers, victims and observers to see the significant role that local disaster relief agencies and professional first responders play in high stress scenes involving incident command, scene control, victim needs and assessments, logistics coordination, and multi-agency communication.

The CERT program helps train people to be better prepared to respond to major disaster situations in their communities. When emergencies happen, CERT members can give critical support to first responders, provide immediate assistance to victims and organize spontaneous volunteers at a disaster site.

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Volunteers respond to soggy simulation

By Elizabeth Perry
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 5:15 AM CDT


Saturday morning was rainy and cold, but volunteers still gathered in O'Fallon Sports Park to play victims in a simulated plane crash.


They were part of a Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, exercise. CERT volunteers have checked on people whose utilities went out during an ice storm and have sandbagged during floods.

During this exercise, CERT volunteers were to locate and safely move victims and give basic first aid. CERT volunteers also were learning to contain a disaster scene, so people didn't wander in and disrupt lifesaving care.

Volunteer Karen Conner-Hatcher applied gory makeup to the "victims." She is not a professional makeup artist, but it is a high compliment to say her work looked ghastly.

Conner-Hatcher said the more realistic the makeup, the easier it is for CERT members to get into the event.

T.J. Miles, 11, of O'Fallon had a puckered slash on his face.

"I like wearing the makeup. It's fun," Miles said. "Some of the people here are really messed up.

"Miles mentioned a girl with sugar glass sticking out of her forehead. The girl, Hannah Puckett, 11, is a Central Elementary student whose mom is a CERT volunteer.

Puckett had posed as a victim for CERT trainings five times. On Saturday, her role was a fan of a celebrity also on the fake flight, played by 17-year-old Samantha Simms.

Puckett clutched a Photoshopped picture of Simms standing with "Twilight" film star Robert Pattinson. In the scenario, Puckett tried to get an autograph from Simms just as the plane was crashing because the pilot was drunk.

Miriam Hannibal, 17, and Jaime Nardi, 16, played siblings separated from their father. Nardi spoke little so she wouldn't disturb the burn makeup on her face.

Hannibal said they had taken their roles so seriously during previous CERT scenarios that people thought they'd actually been injured.

Both want to become actresses, and they got into character imagining what it would've been like on the plane before it crashed.

"It's just a matter of opening your eyes as a victim," Hannibal said.

The victims piled into a junked plane and sat on the ground covered in blue tarps. Their corn syrup blood pooled in the rain as the actors cried for loved ones. About 11 a.m., organizers called the victims back, few CERT volunteers were in sight, and the victims were in real peril of hypothermia.

"We would have been dead already. The plane crashed at 6:50," Puckett said.

O'Fallon police Detective Sgt. Robert Kendall said the weather brought the training to an early close, between 1 and 2 p.m.

Plane crash situation sharpens response of crews

March 30, 2009
O’Fallon
by Kris Kolk

On Saturday, March 28, a simulated airplane crash appeared near the soccer fields at the O’Fallon Sports Park. Aircraft wreckage, fire, flares, and “victims” showing a variety of wounds, scattered the grounds. Other “passengers” waited a couple hundred yards away—hoping to be found and then rescued. Further, a debris pile trapped dummy victims.

The site seemed surreal. Amidst the “blood” and screaming, there was an eerie sense of calmness. This was, after all, a choreographed simulation intended to test the capability of the St. Charles County CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams), emergency responders and mutual aid providers.

St. Charles County W.O.R.L.D.S. was fortunate that O’Fallon Police Officer Diana Damke introduced us to Norman Nieder from Cottleville CERT.

Nieder explained that this exercise had been planned since November, following a drill in September. An assessment period allowed participants and planners to determine what went right, what to do differently and how to make an environment more challenging.

Nieder showed us into a staging area where participants portraying victims were getting into their roles. The group was a mixture of children and adults, with fake injuries ranging from a gash on the cheek to compound fractures.

Volunteers included some method-acting Thespians from Timberland High School, sporting full blood and injury make-up.

We were then led down to a pile of rubble under which life-sized and life-weighted manikins were trapped and where Cliff Smith, CERT Instructor, manned the pile. Smith described a procedure called “cribbing.” Using a combination of levers, braces and fulcrums, a cribbing team was to carefully move pieces of the pile, making sure to keep as much pressure off those trapped by the rubble.

Smith, from the not-for-profit corporation, People Helping People, Inc., showed much enthusiasm about the project. He said that in a classroom environment, there may be simulation exercises using tables and concrete blocks, but nothing to this extent.

An exercise of such scale gives participants an opportunity to refine emergency procedures, so that responding almost becomes second nature.

An emergency responder may think “I remember I did this one time in the practice session and now it’s the real thing,” Nieder said.

The event did present an unscheduled actual emergency when one of the participants seemed overcome by cold. An ambulance responded to this coinciding, real-world incident.

Planned as one of the largest full-scale drills organized among all previous exercises in the St. Louis/St. Charles metropolitan area, the exercise was cut short due to cold, rainy weather.

St. Charles County disaster response participants include members of CERT groups from St. Charles City, Cottleville, Dardenne Prairie, O’Fallon, St. Charles Community College, St. Charles County, St. Peters/Central County, Weldon Spring and Wentzville.

Also participating was the region’s first TEEN CERT. This exercise was the first time the teen responders were deployed alongside adult CERT teams. Other participants were to come from Maryland Heights, Creve Coeur, Town & Country, Eureka, Black Jack and Crestwood.

O’Fallon Police and Fire Department, St. Charles County Ambulance District, American Red Cross, Crider Center for Mental Health, and the St. Charles County Department of Emergency Management were all anticipated to participate. Other municipalities on scene included Independence Fire and Washington University EMT as well as other mutual aid organizations.

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Centralized response center to open in Portage des Sioux

Dedication set for Emergency Operations Center

By Kalen Ponche
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 3:13 AM CDT

The northern end of St. Charles County will have a working Emergency Operations Center just in time for the flooding season.

St. Charles County Councilman Jerry Daugherty, D-District 6, started working on creating an Emergency Operations Center in January of 2008. Work is expected to be completed by the dedication scheduled for Saturday.

The Emergency Operations Center is located inside the old St. Francis of Assisi school at the intersection of Second and Farnham streets.

The facility will provide first responders, from police officers to firefighters, a central headquarters from which to work during an emergency situation.

"I think the main thing is during a flood or a tornado we'll have a central spot for people to get information," Daugherty said. "Last year we handed out food and water and cleaning supplies to people who were flooded."

In the past during flood or ice storms, the emergency responders didn't have a place to work.

"In the 1993 flood, our emergency operations center was a johnboat and a bag phone with a can of Spam and a jar of pickles," Daugherty said.

Finding a place to build a headquarters has been a lifelong dream for Daugherty, he said.

Work began on the project last January and by the time the Mississippi started to flood last spring, an elevated floor had been installed and phone lines were being put in.

Four lateral filing cabinets and office furniture were donated, Daugherty said. AmerenUE donated three computer systems and AT&T ran DSL service to the room. The project also received cash donations from the Land Between the Rivers Historical Society and an individual.

The money allowed organizers to purchase map cases that also were elevated. Now city maps and documents can come out of Mayor Mark Warner, the city clerk and Jerry Daugherty's homes.

The project also gives the city of Portage des Sioux a place from which to build a city website and a location for people to get information.

The city has planned a dedication ceremony from 10 a.m.-noon Saturday outside the center.

Daugherty said he hopes to recognize all of the people who helped the project come together. County Executive Steve Ehlmann will be the keynote speaker and the Orchard Farm High School marching band will perform. Area fire departments are expected to have fire trucks on display. Daugherty said a helicopter might touch down as well.

The Land Between the Rivers Historical Museum, located in the same building as the operation center, will be open to visitors.

Attendees are asked to RSVP to Mayor Mark Warner so the city can buy enough food.

Want to go?

WHAT: Dedication for the Portage des Sioux Emergency Operations Center and City Hall
WHEN: 10 a.m.-noon Saturday
WHERE: Farnham and Second streets, Portage des Sioux; located inside the old St. Francis school building
EVENTS: Presentation of colors; keynote speaker St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann; barbecue pork steak lunch; performance by Orchard Farm High School marching band; displays from emergency response agencies
REGISTER: RSVP to Mayor Mark Warner at 636-899-0640 or mwsparky@sbcglobal.net