Chatham CERT

Thanks to everyone who attended our CERT meeting on April 28. We focused on long- and short-term preparation for hurricanes.

To see the presentations, go to these links:
Long-Range Preparations
7-day-out Preparations and Recovery Actions

Thanks to everyone who attended the Chatham CERT general meeting on February 24, 2021. Here are the slides from the meeting. Please let us know if you have questions or would like to become involved with the program.

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January CERT meeting

Our January 2021 CERT meeting is a bit different this time: instead of a Chatham CERT meeting, please attend the all-North Carolina-CERT-volunteer virtual meeting on January 28 (Thursday) starting at 6:30 PM (18:30).  Below is the login link. Password is CERT. See you there.https://ncdps.webex.com/ncdps/j.php?MTID=mb2bb08110f784a737a1775fdb016ce42

We will have our next Chatham CERT meeting on February 24, 2021.

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Covid vaccination update
CERT has been asked to provide volunteers at the upcoming covid-19 vaccination events in Chatham County. As the availability of vaccine increases, we expect to see some large vaccination events at the Ag Center and at Bray Park in Siler City. 

If you have not already emailed us with your interest in helping with the mass vaccination events, please send an email tocovidvolunteer@chathamcert.organd we will add you to the potential volunteer list. We need general support from the CERT volunteers. For those with current medical training, if you wish to volunteer please send an email with your qualifications and your name will get passed to the appropriate authorities. Chatham CERT is coordinating any non-medical volunteers interested in helping at the mass vaccination events, whether CERT members or not.

New Chatham CERT equipment
Chatham County Emergency Management has a new emergency trailer, popup tents, and other new equipment. Look for a work party / training day sometime this spring to learn about the new gear and help put the trailer in working order.

Amateur radio repeater

Previously announced, but good information. There is a new 2-meter amateur (ham) radio repeater in Chatham County, located on Fire Tower Road. For you amateur radio operators, you can find it at the below location. Use so far shows extremely clear and extensive coverage across most of the county.

Name: CCAUXR2
Frequency: 145.230
Duplex: –
Offset: 0.6
Tone: 107.2

Need CERT gear?

ProPac has a discount for CERT Volunteers. If you decide to order something, call ProPac at (800) 345-3036 and mention ‘NCA’, the National CERT Association for a 5% discount on CERT products. This is not an endorsement of Propac; they may or may not have competitive prices on preparedness or CERT gear.

 Interested in being a CERT member?
Learn more about Chatham CERT at this link. Thanks for your interest, and remember our motto: Don’t Be A Victim.

Chatham County will soon begin offering wide-spread coronavirus vaccination by drive-up clinics. Chatham CERT will be asked to assist in the vaccination efforts – primarily through vehicle and individual traffic direction, assisting healthcare staff, providing information and answering questions, and observing individuals for the 15-20 minutes after getting their injection. While the schedule has not been announced, I expect this will begin in March 2021 and will continue for some time.

We need your help! Please send an email with your name, email address, and cell phone number to ExComm@groups.io if you can volunteer for one or more days of the vaccination clinics. 

Need a coronavirus vaccination and fall into a lower priority group? Volunteer to assist CERT with county-wide vaccinations and you can be placed into group 1b (frontline essential workers). 

Our CERT meeting for September 2020 is all about Stress and Social Distancing – How to survive quarantine! You can see the briefing slides here.

The August CERT meeting slides on Home Security are available here.

The 2020 Hurricane checklist is available here.

June 1 starts hurricane season in North Carolina. Every household should be prepared to withstand the wind, rain, power outages, and transportation interruptions these storms cause. Use our CERT 2020 Hurricane and Power Outage Checklist to get ready!

Due to coronavirus concerns, there will be no April 2020 Chatham County CERT meeting. We anticipate the May meeting to occur as scheduled on May 27 (either in-person, online, or some combination).

The CERT Basic Training Course previously scheduled for March 21 and 22 has been cancelled. There will be a new online training course announced in the next few days.

The planned monthly CERT meeting on March 25, 2020 is cancelled and will not be rescheduled. Updates to CERT meetings will be posted on the Chatham Chatlist, emailed to CERT team members, and updated on our CERT website at http://www.chathamcert.org.

A big thanks to everyone who attended our February 2020 CERT meeting on victim transport. You can view the regular presentation here and the victim transport class here.

Please remember to put the March 25 meeting on your calendar, where we will be talking about survival food preparation.

If you would like to attend the next CERT Basic Course in Chatham County, you can register here.

As always, remember that we need to be prepared so we can take care of ourselves and assist our households, our neighborhoods, and our communities in a disaster.