CERT gets new trailer to advance training

With 107 residents trained, the Community Emergency Response Team is a growing auxiliary of the City of Maricopa Fire/Medical Department – just in case.

Monday, the CERT unit received a trailer and equipment worth $18,500 through a grant from Pinal County Office of Emergency Management.

“What a fantastic piece of equipment,” Fire Chief Brady Leffler said.

Having the equipped trailer will allow the program to grow and increase is competence and confidence in itself as a unit of civilian response, according to Jim Fuller.

Fuller is the local coordinator for CERT, which trains civilians in disaster preparedness. They are trained to help other community members when professional first responders are not available.

Fuller said people ask what kind of disaster in Maricopa would make CERT necessary. He acknowledged such an event is unlikely.

“But if there is, then what?” he said. “The community member trained to know what to do could be as close as your neighbor. It could be as close as who is looking back at you from the mirror.”

Maricopa’s CERT unit was created in 2012 under the Maricopa Police Department. That was soon transferred to the fire department. Fuller said they started out crawling and since then have been walking, but with the new trailer they will be “at a jog.”

“We have team members in 14 out of 17 communities in Maricopa,” Fuller said. “Our goal is have two or three in every development. We’ve got a ways to go here.”

Charles Kmet, manager of the county’s Emergency Management office, said the equipment with the trailer included a generator and hand tools.

Fuller said it would all help equip and prepare the CERT volunteers, which he called “some of the greatest people I’ve ever worked with.”

“We know we’ll be an asset,” he said.