photo credit: Mark Prell
Geoff Peters.

In the event of major disaster....be it earthquake, wildfire or man-made....local emergency services will likely be overwhelmed. Experts say it's a good idea to be prepared to go it alone for those first few hours, days, or even weeks.

There is a group of volunteers In Sonoma County who continually train for such situations led by Geoff Peters, Program Manager of Sonoma County CERT.

CERT stands for "Community Emergency Response Team."

All team members undergo a minimum 28 hours of training in order to help out in emergencies.

According to Peters, the Idea for CERT originated with the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1985.

Following the Whittier Narrows earthquake in 1987, Los Angeles officials took an active role in training, developing, and maintaining a network of neighborhood CERT teams to meet hyper-local immediate needs after a disaster.

Peters said it's now spread throughout the whole United States with 600 thousand CERTS trained in the United States, and it's also spread to other countries.

Established in 2019, Northern Sonoma County CERT has since trained more than 180 volunteers in emergency preparedness and disaster response

"We train for large event wildfires, we train for earthquakes," Peters said, "We also train for what we call "Good Samaritan" activity. You're walking down the street, somebody goes down, you know how to do CPR, you know how to do AED, you know how to do first aid, so you can help out no matter what," Peters said.

That means their training is also useful between emergencies...

"I had one of my students from a high school, about five weeks after he finished training," Peters said, "He had a situation he encountered where he became the person in charge, even though he's only a highschooler. But he was the one that knew what to do," Peters said.

The team itself is based in Cloverdale. But can respond anywhere in the county where needed, according to Peters. "That's why we train in Petaluma, Bodega Bay, we train in Cazadero, so all over the whole county," Peters said.

As an authorized American Red Cross training provider, the training is offered free of charge. However, the American Red Cross charges a fee for the certification. "So, we ask the person to pay that fee," Peters said. "But all of the hands-on training and all the training we do is all free," Peters said.

More information about training and becoming a CERT volunteer is at NoSoCoCERT.org.