PBEM Community Resilience Flagship Programs: Difference between revisions

The Portland NET program is modeled from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) [[wikipedia:Community_emergency_response_team|Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)]] program. The CERT program began in 1985 in Los Angeles, and was itself modeled from a similar program the Los Angeles Fire Department observed in Tokyo, Japan. Los Angeles Fire became interested in citizen response programs following the [[wikipedia:1985_Mexico_City_earthquake|1985 Mexico City Earthquake]], where untrained citizens rescued around 800 people but nearly 100 people of those citizens lost their lives in rescue attempts.<ref>Whittaker, J., McLennan, B., & Handmer, J. (2015). A review of informal volunteerism in emergencies and disasters: Definition, opportunities and challenges. ''International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction'', ''13'', 358–368. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.07.010</nowiki></ref> FEMA adopted and standardized the Los Angeles CERT program in 1993. In 1994, Rachael Jacky with Portland Fire and Rescue (PF&R) adapted the national CERT curriculum for Portland and incorporated it with existing emergency response volunteer teams. In order to avoid confusing the CERT program with the Portland Police Bureau’s [https://www.portland.gov/police/divisions/sert Special Emergency Reaction Team (SERT)], the program was renamed the Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team program (NET). Many volunteer emergency response programs in the Portland region (such as Tigard and Beaverton) have retained the CERT title.