Roughly two hundred members of the South Bay’s Community Emergency Response Team, clad in neon yellow vests and forest green hard hats, were training to rescue. They were responding to victim role-players of a fake 7.8 earthquake that hit the greater South Bay area at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday. Members attended from the CERT organizations of El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Redondo Beach and the Tri Cities.
Throughout the day, CERT volunteers, responders and resources were deployed to the neighborhood at the command of the Manhattan Beach Fire Department, to conduct survey and damage assessments, search and rescue and to perform victim extrication and first aid, said Gary Stabile, president of the planning committee for the event.
Experienced CERT members, dubbed ‘evaluators’ for the exercise, trailed behind the responders to give direction and critiques. At 2 p.m., the City Council met, declaring the existence of a local emergency.
If the “big one” hits, city agencies like police and fire likely won’t have enough resources to respond to the whole city, said Armando Ruiz, Redondo Beach CERT member who has Federal Emergency Management Agency certifications. “The first ones they’re going to go to is schools, hospitals…but as far as city wide goes, if people don’t learn to help each other, it’s going be a while,” he said, on the amount of time it could take to get help in a disaster zone.
This was the South Bay’s third annual exercise – last year, the shakeout took place at the AES power plant in Redondo Beach, and the year before, at the South Bay Galleria.
The first person to show up to a disaster zone is named the “incident commander.” The idea is to train as many people as possible to take on that role, said Kathie Nichols, a CERT member. “In a real world situation, you’re never going to know who’s going to be available – who’s in town, who’s not injured,” Nichols said.
The volunteers who played victims each had information cards around their necks explaining their conditions – it was up to the responders to triage them, or label them as green, yellow, red or black.
Those able to walk away by themselves were labeled green; those with delayed responses were labeled yellow. Victims with life-threatening injuries that needed immediate treatment were labeled red, and the deceased were labeled black. Usually, one CERT member said, how to label the victims depends on their respiratory rate. A victim with more than 30 respirations per minute likely needs immediate assistance.
Tim Lopez, a young man who played a victim, constructed a protruding bruise on his head and smeared oatmeal around his mouth and shirt to depict vomit. He was labeled red by responders, after which they carried him to an ambulance on a stretcher.
The main weakness of the responders throughout the day was communication, Ruiz said. The radio connection was constantly cutting out on Saturday, so he thought members needed to be better versed in hand signals and staying in the line of sight of other responders.
Cribbing, the process of extricating a victim trapped under a fallen object, needed some work too, he said. “It’s not something they do often, but I wish that they would,” he said.
At the shakeout, responders also learned how to navigate a disaster zone. The volunteers were good about avoiding live wires, Ruiz said. “You’re not supposed to walk over a live wire because then you become conduit, and you will be electrocuted,” he said.
Janice Brittain of Hermosa Beach CERT learned that from experience. “The first time I did this, I shook someone’s hand only to realize I was being electrocuted,” she said.
CERT members also practiced putting out fires. The fire department helped train the responders by creating fires for them to extinguish.
During an exercise, one man ran to the scene of the fire alone – the responders were told to always travel with a buddy.
“Where is your back up? Your partner, your buddy. What were you taught?” asked a fireman to the responder, over the blaze. They practiced the exercise again, during which the responder made sure his buddy was with him.
In disaster zones, people are always willing to help, Ruiz said, but a lot of times they don’t know how. Those who have disaster response training will be able to take control and assign tasks to community members. “That person becomes a team leader,” Ruiz said. “This is real world experience.”
To get involved with CERT, email info@mbcerta.org.
