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City’s disaster program lends creative dimension to otherwise routine summer

Editor’s note: The following is a first-person account describing one participant’s experience in Tempe’s program designed to help residents be prepared for emergency or disaster situations. Information about the program is available by calling (480) 858-7200.

By Clare Kronemeyer

In grade school I dreaded the composition assignment that was always given the first week of school: “What I did this summer.” I knew I did everything all the other kids in the neighborhood did which, back on the East Coast, involved going down the shore and hanging out on the corner, so I never had anything that I thought was worth writing about.

This summer I did something that would have been worth sharing with my classmates, but I have long since passed the fifth grade, and so I am sharing it with you, my neighbors.

In the May community newsletter that comes with our water bill, there was a write-up about a new program, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) offered by the Tempe Fire Department that would teach you how to help yourself and your community when and if an emergency should arise.

The program consists of seven classes and is held for three hours once a week at the Fire Training Center on University between Rural and McClintock.

I thought about taking the course for at least a week. I am an interior designer so I had a hard time envisioning myself doing the types of activities I assumed would be in the course.

After all, I know absolutely nothing about dressing wounds or putting out small fires with a fire extinguisher so they don’t become bigger ones.

Then I realized that the course is just as much for someone like me as it is for someone who is more knowledgeable and more physically robust than I am. So I put my fear in check and called the fire department to sign up. 

I am very glad I did.

The course covers the basic skills necessary to help yourself, your family and your neighbors survive an emergency. It covers the team organization and the various types of activities necessary to bring order and stability back into our lives after such an event occurs.

We learned how to dress a wound and how to tell which wounds required immediate attention. We also learned the best way to move an injured person and when NOT to move an injured person.

We learned a technique used to enter and exit a building safely when the electrical power has been lost.

Remember, however: This is only a basic training course, so it is not designed to make you any kind of expert. If you are like the first CERT participants, you will come out of the course feeling better prepared, and wanting to know more, wanting to be more prepared. 

So, this is the end of my fifth-grade composition about this summer. I think the Tempe Fire Department  did an excellent job presenting the material and directing us through the various drills.

I encourage anyone who is concerned that they do not have the skills necessary to survive an emergency to take this course and, of course, to do it beforehand so that you can be more effective if ever needed in an emergency-type situation.

In a big disaster there is always the chance that the first responders (firefighters and police) will not be able to reach your community, so the more we are prepared to help one another, the better off we all are.

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