Hackensack residents ask for CERT team to assist city in the case of emergencies Friday, September 20, 2013
NEWS EDITOR Hackensack Chronicle
HACKENSACK —Concerns over looming future emergency response and preparedness has prompted local residents to ask the governing body to consider establishing a Community Emergency Response Team.
ELIZABETH LARA/FILE PHOTO
Residents asked the city to look into forming a Community Emergency Response Team to assist the community during emergencies such as future severe inclement weather conditions like Superstorm Sandy. During Sandy, some residents found themselves stranded such as this driver on South River Street.Regina DePasqua addressed the governing body during the Sept. 3 Mayor and Council meeting, asking the city to look into a CERT team and why it has not established one up to the date.
"Are we at least considering getting a CERT, [Community] Emergency Response Team, going," DePasqua asked. "That would be helpful. Like last year that would have been helpful with [Superstorm] Sandy."
As per the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website, the CERT program "educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help."
According to DePasqua, the use of CERT teams in surrounding areas has proven successful during a time of need.
"I have a friend who does it in Rochelle Park," she said. "Two days before [Sandy], they were getting prepared. They were getting ready. They had the water. They had everything. And these aren’t city employees, even though they had the volunteer fire department, but it was volunteer CERT people getting everything ready —notifying people that they knew had problems with flooding…knocking on doors, going out and doing it.
City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono addressed the public and Mayor and Council —updating all on discussions following Sandy.
"In the follow up meetings, which are continuing, following up Sandy’s response,…a stronger CERT effort has been discussed a number of times. What happens here is we’re surrounded by successful CERT organizations —Rochelle has a strong CERT, Lodi —but they don’t have H-COPs. The H-COPs draw [volunteers] from the pool… some of the people that would be potential CERT members are H-COPs."
According to the Hackensack Police Department website, the Hackensack Citizen Officer Partnership program is "an innovative, one-of-a-kind program provides the Hackensack Police Department with thousands of hours of volunteer assistance, while allowing citizens to observe firsthand what law enforcement is all about."
However, resident Kathleen Salvo contended that CERT and the H-COP programs are completely different and serve different roles in the community.
"The CERT is different that the H-COPs. We need H-COPs to help but the CERT people know the neighborhood," she said. "I remember being in Florida and calling my fire department to evacuate East Kennedy because it goes underwater and they don’t know it because we have new people coming in all the time. They only way people remember, is if they went through it and if you have new people, they don’t. The CERT people would be neighborhood people. I also remember calling… to get people to knock on the doors and get all the cars off of East Broadway because that’s my neighborhood and I know [flooding] happens. So, I think we should have CERT and we should have the H-COPs. The H-COPs could aid the CERT people who know the neighborhood very well."
DePasqua shared similar sentiments as Salvo, but Lo Iacono said that H-COPs do notify residents.
"H-COPs were doing that pre-Sandy," he said. "As far as notifications, we had H-COPs doing that."
While Lo Iacono said that H-COPs are currently responsible for notifying residents in the case of emergencies, the possibility of forming a CERT is being "looked into."
- See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/224520401_Hackensack_residents_ask_for_CERT_team_to_assist_city_in_the_case_of_emergencies.html#sthash.KtdbOUZR.dpuf
