The 'Sheridan Ready' is Sheridan's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members identifying public service initiatives that require special attention. Paying careful attention to these issues can make our program more inclusive and more successful.

 

1. PROMOTE PREPAREDNESS

Designed to educate and empower the people of Sheridan, IN to prepare for, respond to and mitigate emergencies, including natural and man-made disasters. The goal of the initiative is to promote preparedness through public involvement.

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Sheridan Ready asks individuals to do four key things:

(1)  stay informed about the different types of emergencies that could occur and their appropriate responses

(2)  make a family emergency plan and

(3)  build an emergency supply kit, and

(4)  get involved in our community by taking action to prepare for emergencies.

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The aims are to encourage individuals to take important steps about the different emergencies that may affect them, as well as taking the necessary steps to get trained and become engaged in community preparedness and response efforts.

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2. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Real incidents are chaotic, and CERT members have little or no experience in dealing with the chaos outside of drills and exercises. To bring order to chaos, CERTs are organized under the principles of the Incident Command System (ICS). 

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When a disaster or overwhelming event occurs and responders are not immediately available, CERTs can assist by:

• Conducting an initial size-up in their homes or workplaces.

• Reducing immediate dangers by turning off utilities, suppressing small fires, evacuating the area, and helping others.

• Treating people in the immediate area.

• Working with CERT members and volunteers to establish a command post, staging area, and medical triage and treatment areas.

• Collecting damage information and developing a plan of operation based on life-saving priorities and available resources.

• Applying their training to situations where CERT members can make a difference.

• Establishing and maintaining communication with responders.

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The aims are to develop skills through assigning roles and responsibilities. Once these responsibilities are established and specialists are appropriated, the team must real-life run through's of their assigned roles. Check sheets of activities that must be performed to accomplish a particular assignments must be developed. Recognize all of the variables that can take place during the event of a specific emergency and then set goals around these variables and possibilities.

 

It's important to decide how the Sheridan CERT team will operate in a real disaster. What will cause them to be activated? How will they be called up? What will be their area of responsibility? Who is responsible for obtaining the equipment cache? How will they communicate with emergency services? How will they communicate with neighboring CERT Team members as they arrive? What information does the briefing contain? And more...

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In the event of limited personnel, developing our members through cross-training is necessary so our team has the flexibility to respond with minimal resources.

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Medical Officer

Personnel Officer

Community Officer

Communications Officer

Resource Officer

Search & Rescue Officer

 

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