Recently, I had an opportunity to chat with Tyler Suchman -- founder of http://www.ojaipost.com/. During our conversation, I learned of another venture he founded called Emergencity (http://www.emergencity.com/), which went live today (April 14th, 2008). While the scope of Emergencity is nationwide, and even worldwide, we are fortunate here in Ojai, CA to have local access to the founders.
Within each emergency drill (CERT, City, County) I've been involved in, the key component requiring improvement is communications.
I look forward to ongoing collaboration between Ojai Valley CERT, Ham Radio and Emergencity wherein trained volunteers and the community partner in effectively bringing their city back online after an emergency/disaster.
"Emergencity provides local communities with a proven and sophisticated web communications infrastructure, empowering citizens with access and interactivity for events, businesses, jobs, blogs, video and more. By establishing a scalable, reliable community hub, Emergencity enables next-generation emergency and crisis management through effective aggregation and distribution of critical information, or actionable intelligence, from all corners of the community. Emergencity's products are designed to benefit the social fabric of a community, including volunteerism, commerce, culture, and philanthropy". (http://www.emergencity.com/)
Please go to (and bookmark) http://www.emergencity.com/ for more information.
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THIS WEB-SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED.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).
