Greetings, all!
Sam here!
Rod and I would like to thank all of the CERT members and visitors who attended and participated in the tabletop exercise held at the Camden County EMA during CERT’s monthly meeting on June 1, 2021.
The tabletop went extremely well, with good interactions, questions, identification of training needs, equipment shortfalls, and more being addressed during the exercise as well as during the hot wash afterward.
We are including documentation in this post showing the exercise, simulation photos, feedback forms, and more. In writing the After Action Report/Improvement Plan, we have assigned a time period of one year to correct some of the identified problems and shortcomings to help the group become stronger and pursue more training to make you an effective asset for the first responders in the county, should you be needed.
Visit the Camden County EMA’s website!
Stay tuned for a follow up to this blog from Assistant Coordinator Ranita Jones as well as documents useful for training purposes on the Training page.
Hello, this is Ranita (Asst CERT Coordinator). If you weren’t at June’s CERT monthly meeting where this Tabletop Exercise was held, you missed a very good learning opportunity! Not only was there an experienced instructor (Sam) providing us with relative real-life situations, we also had overhead maps of the incident scene as well as some good virtual graphics of the incident scene.
I agree with Rod and Sam that there was 1) good interactions (both among CERT members and between CERT members and EMA personnel), 2) we identified that additional training is needed not only in incident procedures but also regarding the necessary FEMA/CERT forms to be used during an incident and how to correctly complete them (in case they’re needed for possible state/federal reimbursements to take place if applicable), and 3) we also discovered some equipment shortfalls (such as needing to have 1 or 2 backboards in the Rehab trailer, making sure CERT generators/chainsaws are in working order at all times, etc).
Also, what was agreed to by all attendees was that the Exercise was very helpful and that CERT definitely needs to have more Exercises like this to help CERT members become more knowledgable and comfortable with working an incident.
I personally feel that by having these kind of training events not only makes CERT members more knowledgeable but it also helps build comradery in our group. Hope to see more people being able to attend future Exercises!
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