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.

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.

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.

http://sccworlds.com/

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

O'Fallon looking for citizen responders

By Elizabeth Perry
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 3:13 AM CST

For the first time, the city of O'Fallon is developing its own Citizen Emergency Response Team.

The team is composed of resident volunteers willing to help the police during crises.

O'Fallon Police Officer Andy Stowers said the class should appeal to anyone who thinks people "need to be able to take care of ourselves."

Seven people have signed up for CERT classes. Stowers said he hopes for 25 participants.

Many other communities in the county have CERT programs, and Stowers said officials who run those programs were resources for him.

"Everybody has helped me," Stowers said. "I couldn't do it without community support."

Shalom Shoaf, the CERT coordinator for the St. Charles Fire Department, was one of those people in the community who provided support.

Shoaf said she and Stowers talked about necessary paperwork and how to gain support for the program.

Shoaf said CERT has been around since the late 1970s, forming after an earthquake in Mexico killed 800 rescuers who were trying to clear a building. The idea is to train volunteers to increase their chances of survival and make them more effective in emergencies, Shoaf said.

Shoaf said her team is utilized more than any other in the county.

"We deploy my CERT team in the city quite a bit," Shoaf said.

Volunteer team members went door to door in St. Charles during an ice storm a couple years ago to see if residents needed help. Shoaf said her team of volunteers has safely evacuated nursing homes.

"We have to be out there ready to help our neighbors," said Phillip Yocum, an evidence officer with the Wentzville Police Department and a CERT organizer.

Stowers said Yocum also advised him.

Yocum said he was impressed by the spirit of volunteerism among his team. There is a waiting list for volunteers who want to take part in Wentzville's CERT program, he said.

Wentzville will also be conducting CERT classes for Wentzville residents Jan. 26 with CERT classes for teenagers starting Feb. 19.

Jim Sease, a volunteer who started Dardenne Prairie's CERT team, said he was glad to help with the formation of O'Fallon's team.

"I am personally excited to see O'Fallon get a program," Sease said.

Sease said the two cities are like a zipper, with O'Fallon families and Dardenne Prairie families interwoven.

Volunteer programs like CERT are important because the federal government is not always available to help right away in emergencies, Sease said.

Sease said CERT is important for another reason.

"There are times when the first responders become the victims themselves," Sease said.

First Community Credit Union donated $580 and Peoples Bank donated $500 to the program in O'Fallon, which does not have government funding yet, Stowers said.

The class has a $25.00 per-person fee to defray the cost of the program, Stowers said.

Stowers said the program is good for anybody interested in disaster services or emergency management.

Residents will learn how to be prepared for a disaster by packing kits containing, food, water and extra medication to keep them going for at least two days.

They'll learn fire safety, first aid, how to safely lift heavy objects and how to help others coping with disaster.

Search and rescue will also be covered in the three-day class.

Participants who take the class will get a backpack full of survival gear and supplies.

If you go:

WHAT: O'Fallon's Citizen Emergency Response Team Course
WHERE: 100 N. Main Street, O'Fallon
WHEN: Feb. 20 - 22
CONTACT: Officer Andy Stowers, 636-379-5686

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.ofallon.mo.us/PO/CERT

Adopt-A-Highway: St. Charles County Citizen Corps Council adopts Highway 70 at Bryan Road

In April, just prior to the No MOre Trash! Bash 2008, the St. Charles County Citizen Corps Council adopted a one-mile stretch of Interstate 70 east and west of Bryan Road. Several volunteers collected more than 47 of the over 84,000 bags of litter from Missouri's roadways, streams and other public areas.

The purpose of the Adopt-A-Highway program is to provide community support for litter prevention and highway beautification efforts.

The Missouri Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining about 385,000 acres of right of way. Much of this consists of the roadsides along the highway. Because of this large task, MoDOT started the Adopt-A-Highway program in the fall of 1987. The program allows the public to become personally involved in improving our environment and helping to keep Missouri's roadsides beautiful.

The adopted portion of Highway 70 extends 1/2 mile east and west of the Bryan Road overpass on both sides of the interstate.