CPNA CERT Drill February 2, 2007

It was a sunny, if chilly, Saturday morning for a great CERT Quarterly Drill. Eric Lipanovich, Chris Dateo, Russ Jones and Rick Van Mell were out early posting about 90 incidents on light pole and fire hydrants. By a little after 9:00 am, George Jacob and others were opening the Command Post trailer on the Bubb School playground.

Our Block Volunteers and Team Members had gotten an initial briefing on Thursday night, February 1st at the Bubb School Multi-Purpose Room (many thanks to bubb School!). They know the objectives for this drill were to practice re-assigning Block volunteers to other streets after they had completed their own, and forming Search & Rescue teams to investigate an incident.

We rotate postion assignments at the Command Post so people get experience in differenct jobs. For this drill the roles were filled by:

Incident Commander:	Rick Van Mell
Net Control (GMRS Radio):	Gordon Good
Scribe:	Eric Lipanovich
Map Recorder:	Pam Miller
Map Asst.:	Cynthia Sievers
Logistics: (Supplies)	Dee Guertin
General Assistance:	Chris Dateo
Team Leader:	Dave Offen (was sick on 2/3)
Team Member:	Russ Jones

At 9:55 Gordon Good open the radio net for the drill - and in minutes our block volunteers were checking in to say they were starting to check their blocks for damage -- from an earthquake. They walked their blocks finding the incidents and reporting in the Priority 1s -- Life threatening -- and big Priority 2s -- major fires or house collapse -- incidents.

Eric Lipanovich acted as scribe writing down each incident as it came in. that's a challenge when you're hearing it over radio and trying to get a fair amount of detail written down. At our debriefing, Eric reminded Block volunteers to remember someone is writing down their words, so please speak a little more slowly!!

We had set up an "incident" in George Jacob's garage where a person (mannequin "Craig") was trapped under fallen boards and boxes, while his wife Betsy Dwyer & son Ryan Sherod (real people) were screaming, and "grandfather" George was just agitated as can be. All this enhanced by clouds of smoke (fog machine) and kids screaming (actually Ryan & Julia Patterson, recorded two years ago!)

A total of four Search & Rescue Team were sent to 661 Lola to size up the situation, and rescue the victims if they could. While one team report poor "Craig" as deceased (in earshot of Betsy & Ryan who went hysterical), the last team happily found a pulse and carried "Craig" back to the Command Post to end the drill. They were greeted by great cheers from everyone.

We were most fortunate to have Lynn Brown, the mast trainer and head of Mountain View, and Jerry Hagg who heads up the amateur radio room at the Mountain View Emergency Operating Center. They had encouraging words for us and pitched in with a few suggestions too.

Why we even had donuts for all the Block Volunteers and Team Members who assembled at the end of the drill for a debriefing and many thanks for a job well done. The Command Post team for this drill will get together and summarize the good lessons learned and we'll distribute them to the neighborhood in due course.

Below are the names of your 32 neighbors who put it together and pulled it off. So the next time you see them, give them a "thanks" for taking one more step to help our neighborhood.

George gets Craig dressed for the incident	Eric plays test victim at "disaster" site	Smoke gets ...
everywhere!	Getting Command Post set up	CP setup - Gordon Good Pam Miller & Cynthia Sievers
Gordon gets forms ready	Pam & Cynthia post first reports	In the thick of it
Lynn Brown & Jerry Hagg check out the rig	More stuff comes in	Rick, Jerry, Russ & Dee
Rick sends off Barb, Hugo & Kathryn	Russ Jones, Kathryn Carpenter & Robin Tenold arrive at incident site	Our "victim" family
Ouch!	They've freed "Craig" ...	But (mom) Betsy Dwyer & (son) Ryan Sherod are still distraught
Russ Jones' Rerpot	Next team tries - Jill Bauza, Gail Nyhan Page McDonald & Erika Spence	Lynn, Chris, Robin & Page the size-up!
They make their entry mark	Jill Works to free Craig	Jill, Gail & Erica check Craig
They get "Craig" out - and he has a pulse!!	Jerry & Lynn approve	Birgit helps bring Crig back
The debriefing	The core team - Dee Guertin Pam Miller, Cynthia Sievers, Chris Dateo, Gordon Good & Eric Lipanovich	plus Rick van Mell
What 60 incidents looked like