Hello Galveston County CERT Family,
We are entering April, the fourth month in a year that has seen continued response to the Covid-19 threat to our community and a freeze emergency that caused emergency response activations to meet the needs of neighbors and communities. CERT also stepped up and helped make the County Household Hazardous Waste Disposal Day a big success, thanks to all that came out and helped! CERT members such as yourself stepped up and filled in the needs of jurisdictions that were asking for help!
We need to remain focused and diligent in our needed response to the Covid-19 threat. CERT members are needed to continue to staff our response at the Walter Hall Mass Vaccination POD. Please look at your calendar and see if you have the time to work a shift to make the POD successful. If you have not pre-registered to assist you can do that by following this link. Once you have pre-registered to volunteer, you are asked to send an email to John Herrmann listing the dates and shifts that you would like to be scheduled to volunteer. We work an AM shift from 7 am til Noon, and a PM shift from 11:30 am – 5 pm. We schedule Tuesday through Saturday. Please join us if you have not yet worked at the POD, or sign up again to continue to volunteer if you are able!
We have to continue to train and prepare for future needs in Galveston County. Here are some of the upcoming opportunities to prepare for future needs:
CSAT (CERT Situational Awareness Team) will have Informational Meeting 4/6 - We'll be hosting an informational meeting for our Situational Awareness Team. This Team looks over social media during disasters and events and alerts officials as needed. This team is important to the county as they provide much-needed information and allow county officials to dispel any misinformation when needed. This meeting will be via ZOOM on April 6th and 6:30 PM. Fill out this form to let us know if you are interested. Your ZOOM link will be emailed to you 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting.
CERT Trailering Team will meet and discuss issues on deployment of supplies and trailers throughout the county. We will meet on Tuesday, April 20 at the OEM. This meeting will start at 6:30 pm. Please follow this link to let us know that you will be attending.
The CERT Ham Action Team (CHAT) will meet at the OEM on Wednesday, April 21. The training will begin at 7 pm. Please bring your radio with you to this training. Please follow this link to sign up to let us know that you will be attending.
The CERT Drone Team will train on Saturday, April 24, at the Bayside Regional Park in Bacliff starting at 8 am. We will be practicing our flight skills and discussing matters that would affect our response in time of need. Please plan to attend, and follow this link to sign up!
The Dickinson EOC Support Team will have their first meeting and training on Wednesday, April 28, at the OEM from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm. Please follow this link to sign up for the training and to become involved in assisting the City of Dickinson to operate their EOC during activations due to events or incidents!
We will have our second CERT Academy starting in May. Please share this link with anyone you know who may be interested in joining the greatest volunteer response group on the planet. Here is the link to sign up to be part of the next CERT Academy.
We will have our annual CERT Social Dinner on April 24th. Please save this date and plan to join us for this opportunity to get better acquainted in a relaxed and fun environment! More information will be sent to you soon on this event!
May 15th is the Big Ass Crawfish Bash and we are asked to help once again in the parking area to make the event run smoothly. This is a big fund-raising event for our 501c3 organization that support our team with buying supplies and sponsoring training. We need you to save the date and plan to come out and make this effort successful! More information will be coming out soon.
Please check the calendar and links to register for events and trainings on our website frequently! Galveston County CERT has a lot of great stuff going on and we want you involved!