Citizens learn what to do in case of disaster

Eric Leake

Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 | 8:34 a.m.

If a major disaster strikes the Las Vegas Valley, emergency personnel would likely be overwhelmed. That's one of the reasons a dozen citizens started preparing themselves for the worst.

They sat in an underground classroom at the UNLV Institute for Security Studies on Spencer Street near Flamingo Road Thursday night for one of the beginning sessions in the Community Emergency Training program.

The free course, coordinated by Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, teaches the basics of disaster preparedness, fire safety, medical operations, light search and rescue and disaster psychology.

Thursday's lesson was in disaster medical operations. A Saturday class was to practice live fire suppression. The goal is to graduate residents who can help themselves and neighbors in the event of a disaster until professionals arrive.

"These people are going to be able to step in, in an emergency, and figure out what needs to be done first," trainee Rose Matta said.

Matta, a dispatcher at the Las Vegas Convention Center, said she has taken some emergency preparedness training but is eager to learn more.

The lead instructor, Rick Diebold, who works in the emergency management division of Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, said the first courses were conducted in 1999. More than 1,000 people have since been trained, he said, with an average of 15 classes a year and 32 people per class.

Six sessions comprise the course, totaling 24 hours. Trainees study in and out of the classroom, putting out real fires and acting out responses to scenario disasters. The classes are free and funded by a federal grant.

Graduates are invited to be listed in an emergency database that was activated nationally for the first time during last year's hurricanes in Florida.

The students in this CERT class included an ROTC graduate, university students and employees, a beginning piano teacher and grandmother, and a counter-terrorism consultant.

Diebold opened the course with a review of the many "100-year floods" that have destroyed lives and property in the valley. He talked about how Las Vegas depends on Southern California for energy and food, and he said that connection is tenuous.

"People don't realize how big an impact a disaster in California would have on Southern Nevada," Diebold said. "Our biggest chance for a disaster is an earthquake along the San Andreas Fault."

Recent UNLV graduate Patrick Naughton, 26, listened to the session as a newly commissioned officer in the Army National Guard and somebody who could be called to help in an emergency.

"I didn't know what to expect," Naughton said of the course. "I've already learned a lot just in 10 minutes."

Naughton said he has seen disaster before. When he was an enlisted soldier in Fort Campbell, Ky., a tornado struck that area and he wasn't sure how to act.

"They just grabbed us and said, 'Hey, a tornado just hit and we need to go help,' " he said.

Naughton recognized that a disaster could happen again, and if it does, he expects to know better what to do.

Information about the citizen team and the classes to join it are available at www.lasvegasnevada.gov/fire-rescue/CERT.htm.