You are invited to attend our upcoming NW Area Meeting next week at the Pleasant Hill City Hall Large Community Room (along the eastern archway entrance to City Hall adjacent to the pond) at 100 Gregory Lane. The meeting will convene from 6:30PM to 9:30PM. The core topics of the meeting will cover several processes that will be tested during our upcoming CERT-wide exercise that is scheduled for April 25, 2026 starting at around 8:00 AM and extending to early afternoon. This will be the first CERT-wide exercise in several years that concentrates on practicing operational readiness skills within our CERT Areas. The City’s EOC will not be mobilized per se although there may be mock communications from the EOC. Within this framework our attention can be fully focused on how we assemble, set up Incident Command, conduct light Search and Rescue, and communicate within each Area. This is a significant Exercise and your participation is critically needed to properly assess how effectively we will be able to respond in an emergency. Please mark your calendars and plan to participate on April 25. If you are unable to attend our meeting, I would appreciate you confirming whether or not you will be able to be present for the April 25 Exercise.
Our meeting will cover the following Agenda:
– Welcome and Introductions– Information sharing/Announcements by Jim Hirahara
- Recent CERT Training Graduation Exercise
- April 25, 205 CERT-wide Exercise (March 8 dry-run) planning
- Reminder – CERT Monthly FRS/GMRS Radio Check
- CERT Program Manager Position Description attached
– Current Thinking on Framework for Exercise (your input would be appreciated)
– Refresher for key processes
- Quick Start Guide attached
- Dispatch a SAR Team attached
- SARASSES Form attached
- Communication Flow attached
We’ll have one more meeting (on May 4) before the Exercise where more details of the Exercise framework will be provided, along with refreshers on topics covering specific skills that we can practice, such as talking to each other with FRS/GMRS radios/radio basics, using Zone Hazard maps, translating damage assessment scenarios in to concise messages, etc. If there are other topics you would be interested in addressing, please let me know and I will try to accommodate them.
There’s lots to get ready for so I hope you can attend our prep meetings. Looking forward to seeing you this Monday!
Jim Hirahara
Pleasant Hill CERT
NW Area Coordinator