It's Your Responsibility to Know How to Care For Your Family in a Disaster

Many of my posts talk about the need for volunteers in the LMRFD, but that's about day to day operations for fire and ambulance calls.

Today I'm going to talk about how we can care for family friends & neighbors in those few days or weeks after a disaster.

Between the riots in our nations capital, foreign terrorist, domestic terrorist attacks, changes in weather, and recent earthquakes, the chance of a major event hitting are getting higher. 

Who would respond in a regional disaster? If our region had a major weather event or earthquake where roads are closed and normal communications are down, who would respond? 

The truth is nobody, nobody is going to respond if you or your family are injured in a major event, at least not for several days.

In any major event involving Kingman, Bullhead City, the Colorado River area, and Lake Havasu City, we would be on our own for days if not longer.

It's NOT the Lake Mohave Ranchos Fire Districts fault, it's not the county's fault, and it's not the states fault, it's our fault. We decided to live in a remote area where on a good day we have four firefighter covering fire protection and ambulance service for 2000+ square miles. 

We decided to live in an area with limited resources so it's our responsibility to know how to take care of our family, friends and neighbors in a disaster. 

Everyone Needs to Take CERT Training because what you know in a disaster may literally mean the difference between life and death.

It would be great if we had a CERT team with 50 volunteers between Dolan Springs and Meadview. CERT's basic first aid and rescue training would give us the ability to care for our family, friends, and neighbors, until professional rescuers can arrive.

A organized CERT team would be great, but if you take CERT Training there is no obligation to join or start a CERT team. Simply having local people trained in basic disaster response skills would be an advantage in any size emergency or disaster.

But there are a lot of IF's to getting CERT training approved... 

IF we can get the 20 or so people needed for a CERT training. IF a county agency will sponsor a CERT team here. IF Mohave County has the money, and IF Mohave County Emergency Management has the time. 

It doesn't take much to create a real life and death emergencies in Arizona. Especially in Meadview, several times in the last 8 years I've heard calls where the ambulance was unable to respond to a call in Meadview and tad to turn back because the washes on Pierce Ferry and Stockton Hill Road were both running too high and roads were closed.

No CERT training is planed at this time

We're just testing the water to see how much interest there is in the training 

CERT Training Info