UCLA CERT Training

through ucla, i just took the first of five classes in disaster preparedness offered by the lafd‘s cert training program. the first class on earthquakes was pretty old hat to a native californian. someone who lives on the beach did ask about tsumani’s and tsunami warning time. google revealed many good sites – the most applicable to the question of warning time was the tsunami warning system.

another thing i thought was worth passing on… during a major
disaster, 95% of all first aid and rescues will be done by someone
other than the fire department or other part of the EMS system. that
kind of woke me up to the fact this class wasn’t just some silly thing
ucla was having me go to as part of some cal-osha requirement, blah
blah blah. it’s good info for everyone. i’d recommend people check it
out personally and perhaps organize some kind of neighborhood plan –
the cert site shows lots of people who have done just that. it has links to similar programs nationwide

i am looking forward to next week’s class – we get to put out real fires with extinguishers.