By Helen Klein
High school graduation was never like this. Later this month, the members of the Community Board 18 area Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) will graduate from their 11-week, 25-hour training course, after first passing a variety of tests that will take place as part of a disaster simulation. The training course was overseen by the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM). CB 18 encompasses Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Mill Basin, Flatlands, Marine Park, Georgetown, and Mill Island. The disaster simulation and graduation will take place at Canarsie’s Holy Family School, 9719 Flatlands Avenue, at 7 p.m. on January 19th. Besides the members of the new CERT, participants in the event will include instructors from OEM, the Fire Department (FDNY), the Police Department (NYPD) and other agencies. Among the disaster response skills that will be tested during the simulation are performing first aid, removing a trapped “victim” and putting out a fire. Wanda Ihrig, who is heading up the new CERT, stressed that the purpose of the team was to ensure that there was a group of second responders available locally should the need arise. “If there’s an emergency anywhere in the community board area, we can self-deploy or OEM can tell us to go anywhere within the community board boundaries,” she explained. “What a CERT team is supposed to do,” Ihrig went on, “is assist the first responders in an emergency if they want us to.” They are also supposed to help people in the area get up to speed on emergency preparedness. “The most important thing any CERT group can do is educating the community,” emphasized Ihrig, who said that emergency preparedness is, ‘Something, I think, that every citizen in the city should know.” The area’s new CERT, said Ihrig, is made up of people who have backgrounds that lend themselves to such participate. “It’s really a team of specialists,” she noted. “There are several nurses, several people with military backgrounds, and ex-police officers or state troopers. Probably many of the people in the group had prior training.” CERTs are in the process of being formed in communities throughout the city. The first such group, formed in the wake of 9/11, is CERT-1, in southwestern Brooklyn. That group has served in emergencies such as the blackout of 2003, when members deployed to direct traffic, hand out flashlights and provide assistance wherever necessary. There are five CERTs now in the borough of Brooklyn, and 22 citywide. Another seven, including the CB 18 area CERT, are poised to come on line later this month. OEM’s goal is to have at least one CERT in each of the city’s 59 community boards by the end of this year. The course, itself, was a wonderful experience, said Ihrig. “It was extremely challenging,” she noted, “and it opened everyone’s eyes to be more of aware of their surroundings. It was very empowering. I would recommend to anyone to join a CERT team.”
