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By Dennis Tiu, Neighborhood Lead

The Ocean Colony Community Emergency Response Team (OC-CERT) is a branch of Coastside CERT, and is responsible for organizing Ocean Colony residents as volunteer emergency responders to cover our Ocean Colony neighborhood and respond in case of emergencies or disasters, like wildfires, floods, or earthquakes.

OC-CERT volunteers are encouraged (but not required) to take free training as Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members—training that includes first aid, search and rescue techniques, and other ways to respond to emergencies.  The goal of OC-CERT is to respond in the period immediately following a disaster when other resources, like our Coastside Fire Protection District, the Sheriff’s Department, and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) may be overwhelmed or delayed. 

OC-CERT volunteers will belong to emergency communications (walkie-talkie) nets in the sub-neighborhoods within Ocean Colony.  By relying on CERT members who are also amateur (“ham”) radio operators, OC-CERT will also be able to reach out to public emergency operations centers up and down the Coastside and around the County.  This means that even if a disaster disables other modes of communication (like cell phones or the internet). OC-CERT responders will be still be able to transmit situation reports to local officials, or call for emergency supplies, evacuation of casualties, or other types of emergency aid.

Of course, while OC-CERT volunteers are a valuable asset in emergency response, we are not able to perform many of the functions or work in the same ways as professional first responders.  We can however help to assist survivors and save lives in the immediate aftermath of emergencies.  We can respond by:

• Establishing communications between Ocean Colony residents, and with public agency responders on the Coastside;

• Providing first aid for life-threatening and other injuries until professional assistance is available;

• Comforting and assisting survivors to cope with disasters

• Locating and turning off utilities to avoid fire risk, if called for;

• Extinguishing small fires; and

• Conducting light search and rescue operations.

OC-CERT will be providing basic emergency response training, and organizing sub-neighborhood and Ocean Colony-wide exercises, during which all of us can practice our skills.

OC-CERT members are not required to be CERT-certified.  The minimum requirements are to acquire and learn to operate a walkie-talkie radio, and to be willing to help your neighbors in the event of a disaster.  However, CERT certification is highly recommended, since it equips CERT volunteers with a more in-depth level of disaster response training than OC-CERT can provide.  For more information about CERT certification, please visit .