Welcome to Ojai Valley CERT

IMPORTANT UPDATE.....


THIS WEB-SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED.

PLEASE GO TO HTTP://OJAIVALLEYCERT.ORG

This blog provides information to those interested in CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) activities in The Ojai Valley, CA. CERT works in partnership with OVARC (Ojai Valley Amateur Radio Club) which provides Ham Radio Communications - http://www.ovarc.org/.

http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert is a good place to begin learning about CERT. The fact is, immediately after a major disaster, each of us will be on our own while Emergency Services Personnel (Fire, Hospital, Police, Hospitals, etc) figure out what happened and how to respond. CERT teaches valuable self-preservation skills and empowers each of us to be of service to ourselves, family, neighborhood and community. By integrating CERT with Ham Radio, citizens can effectively communicate actionable information from the field to the Emergency Operations Center -- help will be on the way sooner.

Please check out the CERT Calendar & Map at the bottom of this web-page and sign our Guestbook (top right of page).

Ojai Valley (CERT, Ham Radio, Red Cross)

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Golden Guardian Presentation & Drill 11/15/08

The Ojai Valley Emergency Response Team (Ojai Valley CERT, American Red Cross of Ventura County and Ojai Valley Amateur Radio Club) held a very successful Golden Guardian Presentation and Drill on Saturday, November 15th at the New Wine Harvest Fellowship in Ojai.

Registration began at 9:30AM with over 60 people being registered.

Supervisor Steve Bennett began the presentations with a keynote address.

The next 90 minutes was packed with information from various local, city and county agencies -- see this web-site for agenda: http://sites.google.com/site/gg20081113/Home/ojai-valley-cert-drill-11-15-08

After a short break, we had a Search and Rescue Drill, using one of the church's meeting rooms. A "victim" was inside needing a stretcher and several walking wounded were inside who responded to the initial callout.

Ojai Valley Amateur Radio Club worked 3 separate radio networks to manage various communications for the drill.

Battalion Chief Gurrolla observed the drill and gave constructive feedback. He was overall very impressed with the various teams and was complimentary of the attention to detail.

At the conclusion of the drill, there was an in-depth discussion about radio communications, with future planning of Ham Radio Classes.

Big thanks to the New Wine Harvest Fellowship for providing the space; Ken Williams for providing Water; Captain Steve Lazenby (Santa Paula FD) for lending his equipment; and Ojai Valley Emergency Response Team for all the planning.