In partnership with the San Francisco Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (SF NERT), develop program to establish neighborhood emergency groups to facilitate an effective coordinated response in the event of an emergency.
The San Francisco Fire Department’s Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) is a community-based training program dedicated to a neighbor-helping-neighbor approach. Currently, NERT offers free trainings for individuals, neighborhood groups and community-based organizations. Individuals learn the basics of personal preparedness and prevention. It also includes hands-on disaster skills that will help individuals respond to a personal emergency as well as act as members of a neighborhood response team.
To have the most effective community response to an emergency, our office has been working towards forming neighborhood emergency groups, similar to the neighborhood watch groups coordinated by San Francisco Safety Awareness for Everyone (SAFE).
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Education: We have actively promoted NERT’s trainings to the community through channels such as our newsletter and social media. We also encouraged participation by announcing that our office would participate in one of the Sunset-based trainings in January 2015. We have also promoted the trainings to SAFE groups and encouraged the groups to become certified together. We will continue to promote NERT training to residents.
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Training: Our office became the first sitting Supervisor’s Office to become fully NERT-certified in February 2015. More than 80 community members joined us in the training. With an increase in NERT-certified residents, we can next identify concentrations of NERT-trained and/or interested residents within the Sunset District to begin forming emergency response groups. Approximately 2,517 Sunset District residents were NERT-certified by July 2014. Our goal is to increase that number to 3,000 NERT-certified residents in three years so that there will be approximately one NERT-certified resident for every 20 residents. In addition, we will work to increase the number of residents who have up-to-date certification.
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Emergency Preparedness Leaders: Through our work in developing Resilient Sunset, which will be a district-specific emergency preparedness plan, we have identified key leaders in the community to promote and recruit residents as part of our ongoing effort.
Find out more:
Find out more about the NERT program and training schedules:
http://www.sf-fire.org/index.aspx?page=859
Learn how neighborhood watch groups are organized and implemented:
Find out more information about preparing for an emergency and receive alerts: