Monthly Meeting 1 & 2

CERT Activation and ICP Setup

January & February 2025

Activation

Why We Activate

CERT Members NEVER Self-Deploy to an incident.   You must be officially ACTIVATED.

Activation affords the benefits of Disaster Service Worker (DSW) protections to CERT Members who are acting within the scope of their training and being supervised.  

Important Note:  CERT Members are not emergency services personnel as defined by state law and are such not exempt from federal, state and local laws when responding to emergencies.  Therefore, all CERT members must use due care, diligence and appropriate safety measures when responding or reporting, as directed, to emergencies. 

Standing order activation - the “special” case

If a large-scale earthquake(s) occurs (very strong shaking for roughly 20 seconds or longer) or when a major incident has occurred where it can be reasonably be expected that CERT would be activated but regular communication methods are not available:

CERT members should first check on themselves and their families, and if able and willing, report to a Branch Staging or Command Post location.  (PV Town Center is the default location)  

CERT members must sign-in on the sign-in sheet upon arrival.

All CERT participation is voluntary.  Receiving an activation notice is not an obligation, just a polite request!

Incident Management Team (IMT)

WPV-CERT Incident Management Team members are WPV-CERT leaders who are authorized to activate and supervise official CERT Activations.

IMT Members may assume leadership roles, such as Incident Commander, upon their arrival to the Command Post (CP)    

Current IMT members

Mark Dahlen, Kam McCowan, Chris Paprcka, Craig Taylor, Chip Swan, Robert Seidl

If you are interested in becoming a member of the IMT, please contact Mark mark.dahlen@wpv-cert.org

How will I know when CERT is activated ?

Official activation notification via SMCAlert and/or WPV-CERT Radio channels.    

During storms and other events, turn on and monitor your radio (WD1/PV1).   Normal SMCAlert channels may be down (phone/text)

Get Ready to go 

Your CERT Backpack and equipment should always be ready to go:

• Vest, Helmet, Flashlight, PPE

• Badge

• Radio: charged battery & spares

• Headlamp - exercise is @ dusk

• Sturdy shoes, ground may be wet or slippery

We will have another monthly meeting on what gear to have ready / bring for activations

Incident command posts

We may use one or more of several incident command post locations. Which one is activated will be in the SMCAlert activation notice.

Portola Valley Town Center Community Building

• Buckeye Room

• Park at town center

Portola Valley Trailers 

• At Soccer field

• Park at tennis/pickleball courts and walk back to trailers

Woodside Horse Park

• Location of WD logistics trailer

• Enough space to park near to trailer

Woodside Elementary Schools 

• Alternative location for Woodside

ICP Setup

CERT Incident Command Posts will have at least three distinct areas:

• A command post area for IMT members

• A sign in table 

• A physically separated CERT volunteer staging area

All arriving CERTs need to check in at the sign in table - make sure your name, phone number, CERT badge# and sign in time are LEGIBLE !

Incoming and currently unassigned CERTs remain in the staging area. There will be internet, water, snacks, power to recharge devices, light, shelter from rain, wind etc. 

When volunteers are needed for certain tasks such as windshield surveys, SAR, medical, logistics etc. IMT will form teams and provide them with tasking and necessary gear. We will use the appropriate T-card system and CERT forms to do this. Future exercises will rehearse this further.

Additional areas as needed may be:

• Trailers such as our logistics trailers

• A medical treatment area

• An “internet watering hole” area for public internet access and device recharging

For our February 8 exercise, the ICP will be at the Portola Valley Trailers. Our staging area will be a 10x20’ tent which we will set up and tear down as part of the exercise. And equip with supplies from the PV logistics trailer to make a full staging area.

We will also test Wifi connectivity and Wifi calling from the staging area.

ICP Teardown

• Put everything back into PV Trailer

  • Tear down can take a lot of time and 
effort, so please stick around for it!

  • Secure w ratchet straps…ask

• Check your belongings, CERT backpack etc.

• You need to Sign out - do this yourself, don’t expect someone to ask/remind you !

• Comments, ideas, photos, improvements: email to records@wpv-cert.org

How we did

The first arriving CERTs set up a greeter / sign in table. As more CERTs arrived, the Incident Commander (IC) assigned a Logistics Chief (Logs) to staff the logistics trailer, along with an Equipment Inventory Form to keep track of who checked out what (in this exercise, this was somewhat contrived, since equipment literally just moved 60 feet left, but obviously we would do the same in a real activation, when generators, tools, batteries etc. can leave for assignments further away)

The IC also designated an Operations Chief (Ops) whose role it is to task and dispatch teams in the field.   These teams would be tasked to perform damage assessment, medical triage and treatment, search and rescue, evacuation, sandbagging etc., based on the needs of the incident.

We talked about these briefly, but did not actually send any out.  This will be part of a future exercise. Instead, Ops assigned a Staging manager as team lead for the task of setting up the staging area and assigned all available CERTs to that task. (No scribe or comms person needed for this assignment, while mobile teams always have these).

The staging area consisted of a 10x20 canopy tent with sidewalls to protect from wind and rain (unfortunately not the cold). The canopy was held down with weights and then the luxury interior design elements were added: folding tables and chairs, work lights, a battery pack to power them and signage. This went up pretty quickly but a suggested improvement was to label the side panels to reduce setup time. 

The staging area is where CERTs hang out and get ready or recover from assignments. The idea is to keep distractions & conversations away from the command post itself so the incident management staff can focus on operational safety and efficiency. In a real activation - and perhaps our next exercise - check in/out, team assignment, gearing up, radio checks, briefing and debriefing, wifi access, device recharging, drinks and snacks will all be part of the staging area.

After the staging area setup assignment was complete, we all gathered around for a quick briefing from the IC and then reversed the steps to break down the staging area, squeeze the canopy back into its bags and check all gear back into the logistics inventory. It all went so smoothly, we were done in under 75 minutes !

Thank you to all the CERTs, current class students and CERT adjacent volunteers who participated in the exercise and took photos !

Please provide feedback - Mark has already sent out a link to a form for that purpose. We always have room for improvement 👍

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