During and after a disaster, neighbors coming to each other’s aid are a common sight in the Northern Susitna Valley. Training and equipping area residents to do so more effectively and safely is the goal of the Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, program. KTNA’s Phillip Manning spoke with Kathy Watkins of the Willow CERT program about how it works, and plans for a similar program in the Talkeetna area.
Kathy Watkins is the program manager for the Willow CERT program. A veteran of similar programs in California for a decade, she moved to Willow just days before the last local disaster, the Sockeye Fire of 2015. She describes how team members were mobilized during the early hours of the fire.
“During the Sockeye Fire–the first day when the road was closed, and before law enforcement could get here…we had our own CERT people who live up here in Caswell go out to the Parks Highway and flag traffic until about midnight.”
Now, Kathy Watkins and others involved with the Mat-Su Borough’s CERT program want to establish a team in the Talkeetna area. She says there are already a significant number of people living in the Northern Susitna Valley who have received training at some point.
“There’s a lot of trained people in the…Upper Su Valley who have taken the CERT class ten or twelve years ago. At that time, there was a big push in the borough…to actually teach and train people to be CERT volunteers, so they knew about being prepared, because you can’t help you’re community until you’re prepared.”
Refreshing those who have had past training and bringing new volunteers in is the goal of a CERT training course taking place next month. The training takes a total of twenty hours over the course of four days. Kathy Watkins says, after that training, there will be a plan to help a Talkeetna area CERT team get off the ground.
“Once you finish that process, that twenty hour class, you graduate, you receive a certificate. Then, instead of just turning you out loose…we want to step in, and Willow CERT wants to be a mentor.”
CERT training classes are free of charge, and will be held March 9th and 10th and March 16th and 17th at the Upper Susitna Senior Center. Food will be provided for those taking the classes. All four classes are mandatory to graduate the program.
