County To Expand Emergency Response Team
By: Jon Wilcox
Hays County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to restructure the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) under the direction of the Office of Emergency Management.
The court voted unanimously to place the CERT under the office’s jurisdiction after hearing a recommendation from Kharley Smith, emergency management coordinator. Members of the court hope to expand the CERT’s presence throughout the county and increase its membership, said Commissioner Will Conley, Precinct 3.
The CERT was created in 2003 as a component of the Department of Homeland Security to provide backup for crisis services, Smith said.
Smith said the group currently has almost 100 trained volunteers.
Conley hopes the court’s decision will lead to a membership increase of “several hundreds.”
Hays County emergency personnel train CERT members for crisis situations, according to the program’s webpage.
Smith hopes to provide better training opportunities for the volunteers by integrating CERT and the Hays County Office of Emergency Management.
Commissioner Ray Whisenant, Precinct 4, said CERT performed well during the 2011 “Labor Day fires.”
CERT volunteers set up staging areas for fire crews, opened shelters for victims and provided rehabilitation and support for emergency responders, Smith said.
“They were instrumental in that incident,” he said.
Jon Wilcox is a reporter for the University Star where this article originally published. It is reprinted here through a news partnership between the University Star and Corridor News.
