Base camp for CERT
During CERT training they tell you to bring everything you need to survive for 72 hours.Surviving on your own and surviving along side 15 to 50 of your fellow CERT members plus a couple hundred of your new best friends (The victims) is quite another thing. When building a base camp scale changes everything, as your numbers increase so does the complexity of the base camp. A small FEMA base camp resembles more of a small city in that water use, fuel use and waste removal all become non-trivial. The whole point of CERT is that you (hopefully) have a large team of volunteers that can act as initial responders who are self sufficient for a short amount of time. This gives the disaster authority time to call in more specialized and longer term responders and to ramp up support operations to sustain the emergency response effort.
If you can plan ahead ...
Make sure your base camp location :
- is outside of the impacted area
- is separate from staging area, mass sheltering or other operations areas
- is located uphill and upwind of the impacted area (in case of smoke or fumes)
- has good drainage to prevent flooding and mud pits from forming.
- has access to clean water ( >=1 gallon of water per person per day)
- has working, maintained restroom facilities
- has hand washing and showering facilities
- medical support teams for volunteer health and safety
- teams are scheduled for safety and security patrols around the base camp
- teams are scheduled for food preparation and cleaning
- logistics teams scheduled to replenish volunteer supplies and to provide communication
- logistics motor pool support
- has sufficient bedding and or camping space.
- has suitable food preparation areas
- provides 3 Meals per person per day approximately totaling 2500 to 3500 calories
- has Solid Waste and Waste water removal
- has Security: make sure base camp team dedicates resources ensure the integrity of the camp. (security guard walking parameter, check in points ...etc)
- has teams sleep in proximity to one another to minimize disturbances between shifts
- works closely with the Incident commander to schedule meals and sufficient time to rest
If its an emergency make sure that:
- the camp is located uphill and up wind of the impacted area
- the camp is located away from operations areas
- the base camp area has good drainage to prevent mud pits from forming
- a logistics team to perform waste management (improvised latrines, trash pits, bio hazard disposal,waste water removal, water purification)(be careful not to contaminate your water supply)
- improvise cleaning areas and hand washing stations.
- create trenching as needed to guide water runoff (rain, showers ,,,etc) be careful not to contaminate your water supply.
- medical support teams for volunteer health and safety
- teams are scheduled for safety and security patrols around the base camp
- teams are scheduled for food preparation and cleaning
- logistics motor pool support
- sufficient bedding and or camping space.
- have teams sleep in proximity to one another to minimize disturbances between shifts
- work closely with the Incident commander to schedule meals and sufficient time to sleep
(See The National Wildfire Coordinating Group Base Camp Manager Job Aid J-254 Page 31 for an example 48 hour base camp equipment list for 50 persons) CERT obviously has different criteria for success but the logistics needs are very similar.
Resources
FEMA - CERT Training Resources
FEMA - CERT Unit 4 part 2 - Medical operations
Responder Support Camp planning checklist
Basecamp supervisor job aid
https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/products/training-products/J-254.pdf
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