The Charlottesville-UVA-Albemarle Office of Emergency Management is offering a free nine-week course on emergency preparedness training beginning March 12.
The training will be offered through Community Emergency Response Team, a national organization which has been in Charlottesville for over ten years.
The class is offered to anyone over the age of 18. No special skill set is needed and students are educated in areas such as fire suppression, basic first aid, and disaster medical operation, which includes search and rescue. CPR is not included in the training.
Emergency management Coordinator Allison Farole said the program — which originated from the events on 9/11 — offers training for a wide range of potential disasters.
“This is a course [in which] we give general education and skills to citizens to help become better prepared for disasters we learn about fire suppression, basic first aid and disaster medical-operation like search and rescue, and other things within emergency preparedness,” Farole said.
The different responses needed for each type of disaster require instructors from the many relevant fields. The advisors, who change every session, have worked in the fire department, EMS and other areas of the public safety realm in the local community.
“Our number one goal with CERT is to educate citizens to be prepared so they know what to do and how to prepare their home and themselves in case we do have something like another major snowstorm or something even worse than that,” Farole said.
Offered every spring and fall since 2003, training is completely free of charge through the course. The last graduating class was comprised of 30 students.
“The more people that we can educate the better we will feel or at least we will feel our community is a little bit more prepared for something and will be able to be more resilient and withstand a major disaster,” Farole said.
This particular session will be on Thursdays from 6:30-9 p.m. and will total to about 22 hours of class time. At the end of the course, students are expected to participate in a mock disaster drill to practice the skills learned through the program, Farole said.
The participants will also receive a CERT backpack containing supplies to help get them started and will be able to respond in their home or neighborhood in the event of an emergency.
Read More
Police forcefully clear encampment near University Chapel, detain protesters
By Thomas Baxter and Finn Trainer | 17 hours agoThe University declared the encampment an unlawful assembly at 2:44 p.m.
Student Council passes appointment bill, approves new CIOs at final meeting of semester
By Arshiya Pant | YesterdayMendoza Gonzalez also said she will be meeting with Kenyon R. Bonner, vice president and chief student affairs officer, to discuss further strategies for the Student Council Endowment Fund.
Professors speak about leading productive dialogue on Israel-Hamas war
By Lexie Stadler | 2 days agoThe event was hosted by the University’s Task Force on Religious Diversity and Belonging, which is designed to ensure that the University is welcoming to community members from all religions and cultures.
