CERT Structure

Our Peninsula CERT is a subset of Long Beach CERT (under the jurisdiction of the Long Beach fire Department) and is sponsored by the Peninsula Beach Preservation Group (PBPG).

The Long Beach Fire Department informed our residents that if a major disaster were to hit the city of Long Beach, we might be without resources for up to 3-days. Being on a peninsula, we have just one entrance and exit.

We began as a small group of neighbors who were willing to put in volunteer hours as a commitment to the fledgling Peninsula CERT program. A chairman, supported by the group, began to organize and develop a structured plan for our program. A steering committee was formed and consisted of; Communication, Logistics, Search & Rescue, Fire Suppression, Medical Triage & Treatment, Block Captains and an adjunct team member from our total of 17 members.

Our Structure grew from the Steering Committee’s organization. The Steering Committee asked for more volunteers for the teams, and our members responded to our request by becoming support personnel. Our number one priority was to establish a communication program. We were very fortunate to have two of our members who were veterans of many experiences with community disasters.

From that beginning we rapidly enlarged our membership to over 70 volunteers. This increase was in large part, due to recruiting of existing team members.

The Peninsula CERT program became structured to meet the needs of our local neighborhood. The number of members who have completed CERT training has increased dramatically, and is an ongoing process. Our CERT Structure is presented in the following views of our team’s flow charts and Peninsula map.