Thoughts on NET Training

I know biohabit is considering taking the NET training & interested in the kinds of things we're learning. So this post is for you & anyone else who's interested. I highly recommend getting involved with the Neighborhood emergency team or Community emergency response or whatever your city calls them. The more people that know this stuff the better we'll be in the event of a natural disaster. Imagine if people had known this stuff for Hurricane Katrina...while they were waiting for the FEDS to get their act together. I personally feel better knowing this stuff. I'll be able to take care of myself, my family & help my neighbors. Although I have a 2 page list of things to do to make my house earthquake safe, and that's the emergency we're most likely to have here.

I only have one more class before the final exercise. Next week we'll be talking about disaster pyschology.

This last class was fun & informative. We learned about using levers & fulcrums & cribbing to get a person out from underneath debris. Then we had hands on experience (with heavier items to come at the final exercise). We also learned how to carry victims, either with 1-person, 2-person or multiple-persons.

In our 25 hours of basic training, we've had 6 hours of light search & rescue from sizing up damaged buildings to search techniques & rescue techniques; 6 hours of disaster medicine including treating non-life threatening injuries, triaging, stopping bleeding, splints, learning how to take off bloody gloves, etc; 3 hours of utility control, fire suppression & haz mats; three hours of earthquake awareness & hazard mitigation (preparing home, workplace, & neighborhoods).

After our final exercise we will join our Neighborhood teams and be called up as needed. The NETs have been called up 5 times in their 10 year history, for flooding of 1996 & some other stuff.

I heard too that they will be offering ham radio classes sometime this year for NET members (each neighborhood will have a ham radio operator).

Hope this helps answer some questions. Let me know if there's anything else.