Latest Updates

Twenty-six students completed CERT training; what will they do next?

 

Best practice: train, cross-train, review, practice, drill!

Vashon Community Emergency Response Team training opportunity

Best practice: engaging in ongoing, varied and specialized training programs makes participants even more resourceful for supporting their families and neighborhoods

Ted Buehner, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service has announced a new Weather Spotter Training opportunity for the evening of April 26th. 

The National Weather Service will train new and veteran spotters on how to look for and report significant weather events. The training includes video demonstrations. Interested citizens, Amateur radio, CERT, Citizen Corp, Law Enforcement, Transportation (Metro drivers, DOT) Fire, Public Works staff, and those who have weather instrumentation such as an anemometer are invited to attend! Thursday, April 26th from 6:00-8:30 pm ...

Basic Animal Emergency Services Training (BAEST), taught by the American Humane Association, costs $180 per person though CERT Volunteers who register through Catherine Cochrane can get in free! Registration is on a first come, first served basis. The registration deadline is this Friday, March 2nd. Click graphic to the right for details.

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Be prepared to help your community.... get CERT Trained. Learn how to prepare and care for yourself, your family, your animals, and help out your community in times of power outages, emergencies or disasters. Community Emergency Response Team training starts March 16th. The free training will be held March 16th to May 4th (Fridays 6:00PM - 10:00PM) at Vashon Island Fire and Rescue’s Training Center. To register or for more information, please contact certvashon@yahoo.com or 463-4558 or contact your nearest CERT member!

Vashon Maury Island Radio Club announces an Amateur Radio (Ham) License testing session will be held on Vashon Island around the middle of March. Test costs about $14. Take advantage of these Technician, General, and Extra levels tests given on island.

Training for the exams will not be provided this time, so you’d have to study the ARRL manuals yourselves or go off island for training. Exact date, and location TBA. Please contact Sharon at kharazi@aol.com if you want to take any level test. Details on the Vashon-Maury Island Radio Club can be found at: www.w7vmi.org/

Hazus is a nationally applicable standardized methodology that contains models for estimating potential losses from earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. Hazus uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to estimate physical, economic, and social impacts of disasters.

HAZUS-MH is software developed by FEMA that analyzes risk from natural hazards in communities. Although Hazus-MH itself is free, it requires the users to have ArcGIS with ArcView license level.

Existing HAZUS-MH runs for Vashon (i.e. those for our 2005 Earthquake Study,...

It appears that the ICS Task Books that help evaluators judge ICS performance (2007 versions are online at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICSResource/PositionChecklists.htm) have been newly revised in April 2011, and are now published as a draft docket...

Over the last year Debi Richards, the Vashon Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Director has been thinking about how to encourage businesses to get better...

Are your bookcases secured - or your water heater? There are often personal tasks that we all need to accomplish - but need a bit of advice or to see the basics before tackling these projects. The following were designed for exactly this purpose!

For our media outreach efforts, and for individual preparedness, please be aware of the following videos produced for Washington residents.  These videos were produced in partnership with Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management and the Washington State Emergency Management Division. Funding for the project was made possible through grants from Governor Christine Gregoire, Washington State Citizen Corps and a donation from Puget Sound Energy. 

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The FEMA publication Are You Ready?: An In-depth Guide For Citizen Preparedness, is a 200-page comprehensive guide that walks the reader through a step-by-step approach to getting informed about local emergency plans, how to identify hazards that effect their local area, and how to develop and maintain an emergency communications plan and disaster supplies kit. Other topics covered include evacuation, emergency public shelters, animals in disaster, and information specific to people with disabilities. Are You Ready? also provides in-depth information on specific hazards including what to do before, during, and after each hazard type.

You can download English and Spanish preparedness guides or order them for free...

Hundreds of people and a score of emergency agencies will participate in Snohomish County’s largest disaster drill ever. "Shake, Rattle and Roll 2011" will be held Wednesday at Arlington's municipal airport. The scenario is a 7.5 magnitude earthquake along the South Whidbey Fault, which runs through Snohomish County.

Participants include Medical Reserve Corps and community volunteers from Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, Island and Snohomish...

The Seattle Red Cross will conduct a free two-day Volunteer training on Saturday June 4, and Saturday June 11, 2011, from 9:00am-6:00pm. (Both days are obligatory.) The training will be held at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue, 10020 Southwest Bank Road.

According to Jeff Isaacson, Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator for American Red Cross Serving King & Kitsap Counties, people will be trained in both Mass Care and Disaster Action Team (DAT). So the classes will cover sheltering,...

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 11 AM PST

In times of disaster, a trained and informed public is better prepared to protect themselves, their families, their workplace and their neighbors. This webinar will showcase several disaster training resources that are available in communities across the nation. FEMA recognizes that it takes a “whole community” approach to meet the needs of the public before, during and after a disaster. Learn how your community can train and educate its citizens to be better prepared and involved in your community’s disaster response and recovery efforts.

Join us for brief presentations by representatives from the American Red Cross, the Community Emergency Response Team program, ARRL National Association...

The Five-Year NIMS Training Plan, originally released February 2008 is being revised. The comment period for the new National Incident Management System Training Plan ended February 22, several hundred comments have been adjudicated, and just last week the document was transmitted up to FEMA Deputy Administrator Manning,...

Cathy Wenderoth works for the Seattle Police Department as the Seattle OEM’s Volunteer Coordinator. She is now organizing Seattle’s first CERT classes.

FEMA offers a great set of coursework you can take over the Internet. Now they’ve announced some new courses: The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) offers self-paced courses designed for people who have emergency management responsibilities and the general public. All are offered free-of-charge to those who qualify for enrollment. To get a complete listing of courses, click on Course List link above.

FEMA’s Independent Study Program offers courses that support the nine mission areas identified by the National Preparedness Goal.

Incident Management

Operational Planning

Disaster Logistics

Emergency Communications

Service to Disaster Victims

Continuity Programs

Public Disaster Communications

Integrated Preparedness

Hazard Mitigation

New Courses Launched IS-18.11 - FEMA EEO Employee Course 2011...

Forward, from an email to SKCOAD partners:

I wanted to pass along a free training opportunity that we received notice about from the Snohomish COAD.  “Hands on Diversity” is a series of cultural workshops being offered at the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Avenue in downtown Everett and are open to the public:

 

Saturday, Oct. 9: Native American culture:  9 a.m. to noon & Latin American culture:  1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, October 16: Asian Pacific culture:  9 a.m. to noon & African American culture:  1 to 4 p.m.

To register, please contact Therese Quinn or register ONLINE http://everettwa.org/CityNews.aspx?ID=1&nID=928

Therese Quinn-Burke Snohomish County Medical Reserve Corps Coordinator 3509 - 109th Street SW Everett, WA   98204 (office) 425-388-5075 therese.quinn@snoco.org tquinn@shd.snohomish.wa.gov

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Date:  Sunday, 11-Jul

Time:  1400 – 1700

Where:  Pt Robinson Lighthouse upper parking lot

Equipment:  CERT helmet and safety vest.  Long sleeve shirts and long pants with closed toe shoes or boots suitable for uneven terrain.

If you have an FRS, hand-held radio please bring it, if not we will have radios you can borrow. We have run two of these events before - once in December, it was cold and rainy, but fun.  Once at the end of May, it was heavenly.  We expect this weekend to be very enjoyable and we will learn a lot.

If you have any questions, please call Catherine at 463.4558. She can send you the Training Authorization for this Sunday's training.  It contains many details such as time, place, agenda, equipment, communication.

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www.soundshake2010.com is the spot if find everything out about “Sound Shake 2010, a Regional Catastrophic Earthquake Exercise Series being designed and implemented by Washington State Region Six - Homeland Security to build and test response and recovery plans.”

NOTE: Vashon EOC and CERT volunteers are generally NOT Emergency Responders, so do not attend the following presuming you’ll be ready to jump into action locally! Instead consider this as a way to learn what the professionals will be doing and use the opportunity to learn the proper vocabulary and potential situations that can arise around this type of accident.

There are openings still available for July/September Emergency Responder Training The course provides information firefighters, police and other emergency response personnel will find useful when confronted with an incident involving natural gas or high-voltage power-lines. The half-day training session will provide an overview of the properties, equipment and emergency procedures necessary to identify hazards and reduce the risk to people and property. Program format will include classroom instruction using energized high-voltage equipment and video re-enactments of natural gas incidents and response scenarios. Training held at PSE's Seattle...