Vestavia Hills CERT program aims to empower residents

In the aftermath of the April 2011 storms, Chris Callies neighbor was killed while attempting to assist local rescue efforts.

Callies, a Cahaba Heights resident, knew something needed to change –and fast.

“So much of the CERT focus is on emergency preparedness, but there is another important side of that issue,” Callies said. “And that’s letting folks know how to safely respond to community needs after a storm strikes.”

Vestavia Hills CERT – or Community Emergency Response Team – is a 60-member strong organization that serves as a volunteer training extension of the Vestavia Hills Fire Department. It is backed by support from both the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Although Callies lives only a half mile from Station 5 of the Vestavia Hills Fire Department, the April 27 storms left his neighborhood with zero police and fire rescue support because of the overwhelming burden facing these resources from storm devastation. That left it up to a lot of well meaning residents to check on their neighbors.

 “Our main goal with the Vestavia Hills CERT is to let everyone how to be prepared and how to react when emergency services are not available,” he said.  

To accomplish that priority, Vestavia Hills CERT periodically offers an eight-week training course for residents interested in learning about emergency preparedness and response.

Course topics range from fire and other disasters to terrorism and search and rescue. According to Nicole Zabriskie, a Vestavia Hills and Vestavia Hills CERT coordinator, the course is vital for learning how to take care of yourself when no one can come to your rescue. For her, it is a point of pride to take an active role in emergency preparedness both with her family and beyond.

“In the days after the 2011 tornadoes, we weren’t sitting around acting like victims,” she said. “Because we knew how to handle the situation, we were actually able to aid the efforts of our local fire and police departments in an organized capacity, especially once formal emergency services had been dispatched and roads were cleared.”

Zabriskie is quick to point out that the Vestavia Hills CERT Program is open to anyone, regardless of residency.

“Yes, it is community-based at its core, but to be a part of this program, all that is required is that you live, work or worship here,” she said. “Some of our members live elsewhere, but they do have ties to and a vested interest in this community.”

As a longtime resident of Pompano Beach, Fla., Zabriskie is well acquainted with hurricanes. Tornadoes, on the other hand, were new territory to her. Zabriskie’s first brush with CERT came during her residency in Pompano Beach following Hurricane Wilma. As soon as she found out her husband would be transferred to Birmingham, her research quickly led her to Vestavia Hills Battalion Chief Tommy Hale.

It took this new Alabamian, and the most devastating tornadoes this state has ever seen, to galvanize the formerly casual Vestavia Hills CERT group into serious action.

 “Unfortunately, what you run into is that people don’t have the desire to do anything until something really bad happens,” she said. “And when something really bad happens, it’s too late. You have to be prepared in advance, and that’s why the mission of CERT speaks so strongly to me.”

The efforts of Hale and Zabriskie resulted in the development of a five-member steering committee, a structured monthly meeting schedule, and a growing interest from residents and others with ties to the Vestavia Hills community to sign up and engage in the CERT effort. Courses are a mixed format of speakers, emergency drills, and other simulations to test knowledge and emergency response capability.

“For this to be useful, it has to go beyond theory,” Zabriskie said. “We try to make it as realistic as we reasonably can, and to do that, we use dummies to simulate live victims and we run through the paces of all manner of different scenarios. It spans from fire safety to search and rescue to terrorism to understanding the psychology of a disaster. Everyone handles these things in a different way, and the more prepared you are, the better.”

Course graduates receive a backpack loaded with emergency response equipment including a vest, helmet, flashlight, gloves, tools to maneuver gas and water lines, goggles, a first aid kit, one pair of latex gloves as well as one pair of heavy duty work gloves.

Individuals interested in CERT training can sign up for the next eight-week course, which begins Sept. 17 and runs weekly from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Courses are free, but a manual is required that can be purchased for $25 or downloaded at no cost.

To learn more about the Vestavia Hills CERT Team or to sign up, contact the Vestavia Hills Fire Department at 978-0225 or email vhcert@gmail.com.