Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a program of our Fire Department that trains citizens how they can be helpful to emergency service providers during times of public emergencies. The objective of the program is to increase the number of citizens in the community that can be helpful to not only the City during times of emergencies, but also helpful to the residents in their respective neighborhoods.
As we have learned with the terror attacks on 9/11 and during the hurricanes this year, the government’s ability to help its residents can be somewhat limited. We do not staff and budget to help every single citizen the moment a disaster hits. We encourage citizens to be ready to take care of themselves for a short while during an emergency. Our CERT volunteers can help residents figure out how to do just that.
I’m proud of all of our CERT graduates, but this graduating class had a couple of members in it that I am especially proud of. That’s Kitty Porta (in the purple) receiving her certificate of completion of the CERT courses from Fire Chief George Esbensen and Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens. Kitty is our City Clerk. I work with her on a daily basis. Congratulations Kitty!
And this is Lorene McWaters (second from the left). Lorene is my executive assistant. I work with Lorene everyday. Some people joke that I work for Lorene everyday. She is a great assistant to me and I owe her a lot. She’s got a busy life, yet she was able to dedicate time to becoming a CERT volunteer to help the residents in her neighborhood. Congratulations Lorene!
The CERT program is one of the things that I think separates Eden Prairie from being just an average city. The City provides great city services, but we also know there are limits to what we can do, especially when our systems our stressed by an emergency. We know that we don’t exist without our residents. We know that in times of emergency, we will be able to count on our CERT volunteers to help us keep our residents safe
