N. Okaloosa/Crestview Community Emergency Response Team - CERT

N. Okaloosa/Crestview Community Emergency Response Team - CERT The CERT Program teaches you how to function effectively in your community after a disaster. What is CERT?

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborh

ood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community. The CERT concept was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) in 1985. They recognized that citizens would very likely be on their own during the early stages of a catastrophic disaster. Accordingly, LAFD decided that some basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills would improve the ability of citizens to survive and to safely help others until responders or other assistance could arrive. The training model that the LAFD initiated was adopted by other fire departments around the country, including communities where the major threat is hurricanes rather than earthquakes. Building on this development, in 1994 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) expanded the CERT materials to make them applicable to all hazards and made the program available to communities nationwide. Since that time, thousands of dedicated trainers, organizations, and citizens have embraced the responsibility to learn new skills and become prepared to execute safe and effective emergency response. Source information for this was obtained from http://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams . If you have any questions please contact our local Team Chief Mark Brown at (850) 496-1715 or email him at [email protected]

North Okaloosa CERT is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Donations can be made to https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L4VEYRHHSKDKE

Congratulations on your achievement and recognition! Look forward to hearing more good things about your ongoing develop...
06/06/2026

Congratulations on your achievement and recognition! Look forward to hearing more good things about your ongoing development and involvement with the community. Keep up the impressive work!

Volunteer Florida has awarded the Bay County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) a $10,000 grant to expand disaster preparedness training, community outreach and public education efforts.

Under the leadership of Emergency Management Specialist Jennifer Wilburn, Bay County CERT earned recognition as Florida's Community Volunteer Group of the Year in 2025. The team continues to strengthen community preparedness through training, volunteer service and public engagement.

Congratulations to the entire CERT team on this well-deserved award.

Bay County CERT is a volunteer program that trains community members to assist during emergencies and disasters. For more information about Bay County CERT or to get involved, please contact Bay County Emergency Management at (850) 248-6040.

06/04/2026

The website for North Okaloosa CERT is visible again. The calendar is being updated. Still verifying the various links and feeds for accuracy. Check it out at https:www.NOkaloosaCERT.org.

Members of North Okaloosa CERT ( Community Emergency Response Team) showed up in support of the Okaloosa County Hurrican...
05/31/2026

Members of North Okaloosa CERT ( Community Emergency Response Team) showed up in support of the Okaloosa County Hurricane Expo. Thank you for the opportunity to promote the CERT Program to our community. For more information, write to [email protected]

Get involved where you can!
05/19/2026

Get involved where you can!

05/18/2026

Meeting Reminder!!!

North Okaloosa CERT. We will be having our monthly Team meeting tonight, May 18, 2026 at 1900 hours at the DAV, 5296 Hare Street, Crestview, FL 32536.

The training topic for tonight is cribbing and shoring. This is a hands on training. Please bring gloves and closed toe shoes. There will be squatting and bending involved in this training. The lifting is not too heavy and that's the point of learning how to use leverage and cribbing while identifying that fulcrum point.

We have many projects in the works and would love to have you involved. From developing our outreach for the upcoming Hurricane Expo in Shalimar on Saturday, May 30th to identifying and equipping our responding team members with the gear they will need in order to deploy if activated. We have some projects.

We always need help promoting the Basic CERT Course as well as exercise planning.

We are also building a list of all items essential to outfitting our Team response vehicle and trailer. Our goal is to arrive on scene fully self-sufficient and able to augment our emergency responders, not to be a burden or liability, regardless of the response environment.

And there is always the need for someone to help with grant development and management. There is money available to help build this program. We need one or two team members who will obligate themselves to ensuring our teams involvement with any aspect of the grant process is in compliance and fully accounted for. If you have that background and can help in this manner, we hope you will contact us.

Finally, we do need any of you who have experience writing lesson plans. We have a need to get some of these trainings in a format that whoever is present the material, they will cover the essential items pertaining to that topic. This will include researching local practices of our emergency response agencies, Police, Fire, Medical, and ensuring their operating procedures are incorporated in any aspect of a CERT response.

We will have several experienced Team members at the meeting tonight where you can ask questions about the program and how you may best fit.

We hope to see you there!
Yours in service,
Mark W. Brown, North Okaloosa CERT Team Chief
[email protected]
(850) 496-1715 text capable. Note: if I do not recognize your number, please leave a brief message. I will return message. Thank you!

Meeting location for tonight:
Crestview DAV Chapter 57
5296 Hare St
Crestview, Fl 32539

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!!!! Today’s headache is typically caused by a lack of hydration the day before and the day of ...
05/16/2026

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!!!! Today’s headache is typically caused by a lack of hydration the day before and the day of the activity. Urine is a blood product. The darker your urine is, the more dehydrated you actually are. Hydrate until you are eliminating urine that appears like the color of straw.

🌡️As summer approaches, be mindful of early season heat.

☀️Heat waves have the potential to cover a large area, exposing a high number of people to a hazardous combination of heat and humidity, which can be very taxing on the body.

Learn how to stay safe during a heat wave at weather.gov/heat.

05/15/2026

OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. -- The North Okaloosa volunteer disaster response team says it needs more recruits ahead of hurricane season.The "Community Emergency Resp

Crestview’s 250th cancelled for May 9th and rescheduled for September 12, 2026. Thank you to all who volunteered to help...
05/07/2026

Crestview’s 250th cancelled for May 9th and rescheduled for September 12, 2026. Thank you to all who volunteered to help!

02/16/2026

North Okaloosa CERT Monthly Meeting Tonight!
We will meet tonight! I understand if you cannot make it. Just let me know that you're still around. Thanks!

Urgent need: ASL need. We need someone who can hear and can sign with American Sign Langauge (ASL) to attend our meetings and exercises. We need your help in order to communicate with the hearing impaired part of our community. You may be amazed to find some who are just as eager to be ready as those of us who have their auditory intact. If you know of someone or are able to, please just show up. If the intended recipients are not in attendance by the start of the meeting or exercise, you're free to stay or leave to pursue another activity. We deeply appreciate any help with finding someone willing to volunteer their ability (or get better at it) by being an ASL interpreter for the hearing impaired who are attending our meetings. (Some of you must have taken ASL in college for credit. Come practice your skills. Thanks!)

A reminder that we have our North Okaloosa Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) monthly meeting tonight at 1900 hours. We will be meeting at the location of Crestview DAV’s Chapter 57 located at 5296 Hare Street, Crestview, FL 32539. Doors will be opened at least 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting.
The training topic for tonight is: Heads to Toe Assessment.

On the agenda for tonight is making plans for the upcoming Triple B Festival in Crestview on Saturday, March 28, 2026. This is a CERT outreach opportunity and a great time to promote our upcoming Basic CERT Courses and involvement with this program.

Monthly Meeting Minutes from the last two recorded meetings attached.

I look forward to opening the doors no later than 1830 tonight.
Yours in service,
Mark W. Brown
North Okaloosa CERT Team Chief
850.496.1715 text capable
[email protected]
North Okaloosa CERT Team

Address

321 W Woodruff Avenue
Crestview, FL
32536

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