PBEM Community Resilience Flagship Programs
Portland Neighborhood Emergency Teams (Portland NET)
The Portland NET program is modeled from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 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 1985 Mexico City Earthquake, where untrained citizens rescued around 800 people but nearly 100 people of those citizens lost their lives in rescue attempts.[1] 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 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.
How is Portland NET different from CERT?
All CERTs are managed at the local level and, therefore, all CERTs are shaped by their local communities and often have slightly different rules and practices from each other. Portland NET differs not only in name, but in several key ways as well that CERTs integrating with Portland NET should know about:
- Portland NET uses different branding and a different palette than CERT programs. Almost all CERT programs have like branding and are distinguished with lime green helmets and vests. Portland NET
Notes and References
- ↑ 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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.07.010
