CERT Teams:
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members also are encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community.
Henderson County has trained hundreds of its residents over the past 10 years in CERT procedures. We typically offer an annual CERT training program that has been postponed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Be assured it will return as soon as possible.
Red Cross Volunteers:
- Volunteers constitute 96 percent of their total work force to carry on their humanitarian work:
- Every year the Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters—including approximately 150 home fires every day.
- About 11 million Americans turn to the Red Cross to learn first aid, CPR, swimming, and other health and safety skills. Last year, more than 158,000 people volunteered to teach those courses.
- Half the nation’s blood supply— six million pints annually—is collected by more than 155,000 Red Cross volunteers.
- Among their emergency services for the men and women of the armed forces is the delivery of urgent family messages—around the clock and around the globe.
- More than 30,900 volunteers serve as chairs, members of boards of directors, or on advisory boards for local Red Cross units – chapters, Blood Services regions, and military stations.
- As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Red Cross reconnects more than 8,000 families separated by conflicts and disasters around the world through international tracking services and Red Cross messages.