CERT and Burlingame Neighborhood Network seeks to inform, educate

“Our basis for the program is we want people to subscribe to alerts, be informed, stay informed, make a plan and be involved,” Gunning said.

About 50 people attended the free program March 18 when the Central County Fire Department offered free training aimed at educating people in disaster preparedness. The program trained them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations, according to the CCFD website.

“The premise is doing the most good for the greatest number of people,” Gunning said. “Neighbors helping neighbors.”

Last weekend’s event highlighted the importance of subscribing to a variety of disaster alerts, having a plan and knowing your zone, Gunning said. Zonehaven, an online platform for emergency alert updates and evacuation routes, uses zones so alerts can be personalized for certain areas. Visit aware.zonehaven.com/search to find any zone in the county.

The programs offered are a continued success, Gunning said. CERT deployed a dozen volunteers to help monitor sandbag stations in Hillsborough and Burlingame during the New Year’s Eve storms.

“Our program has evolved into an affiliate disaster service worker program,” Gunning said.

SMCalert.info, Alertthebay.org and Calalerts.org are all useful websites that Gunning urges people to subscribe to for alerts.

“If you don’t subscribe we can’t alert you,” she said.

Once subscribed, the alerts provide updates on evacuations, severe weather, road closures and wildfires in the area.

For those who missed last weekend’s CERT training, there will be another three training sessions offered in April that can be found on the Fire Department’s website at ccfd.org. The three-day course consists of instruction, skills, exercises and the final day is a graduation ceremony. There are usually 25 to 50 participants, Gunning said, and it adds up to around 20 hours of course training in total.

“If we are personally prepared, that enables us to help others. The more folks we can help get prepared, the quicker we can get back to normal,” Gunning said.

The other program, “Lessons learned from the storm: Preparing for next time,” will be held at the Burlingame Community Center at 850 Burlingame Ave., from 9-10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 25.

The meeting will be moderated by Mayor Michael Brownrigg and will feature Councilmember Ricardo Ortiz, Police Chief Mike Matteucci, Deputy Fire Chief Ken Giacotto and Richard Holtz, parks superintendent and city arborist.

Brownrigg said the benefits of citizen groups like the Burlingame Neighborhood Network is that educated and prepared residents lead to a healthier and more tight-knit community.

“They know where the city resources are and so it’s all part of making a healthy community,” Brownrigg said. “We need all hands on deck and a lot of times neighbors wonder what should they do, how do I fix this? How do I fix that? And if we have people who are knowledgeable in emergency response it’s a force multiplier.”

BNN Board Members Rik Kasuga and David Harris will talk about ways residents can help each other during emergencies and build skills through training and participating in its annual drill.

One of its board members, former Mayor Terry Nagel, said a lot of residents are curious about how the city manages storms.

“The goal is to encourage people to get to know their neighbors and take advantage of the resources the city and Burlingame Neighborhood Network offers,” Nagel said.

Studies have shown people who are connected to other people are more likely to survive disasters and also rebuild their communities faster, she added.

“If you have those connections, you have a better chance of helping one another in specialty areas,” Nagel said.

Visit eventbrite.com/e/570284695877 to register for Saturday’s event. Nagel said she expects around 80 to 90 residents to attend Saturday’s event.