SV CERT Events

Overly enthusiastic CERT members met at Pond 1 to begin cleaning up the Symphony Village Ponds. I know you have been eagerly awaiting this event 🙂 and want to participate, but even if you don’t want to clean ponds, maybe just stop by for a while and offer encouragement to the rest of us. It’s a great team building exercise!

Thanks to George Drake for providing the following guidance:

• Bring: work gloves, work shoes, high shoes, or boots (I like them for ankle support, we will be on slopes), one large leaf or garbage bag
• Wear: heavy shoes or boots if you like, CERT vest if you choose to do so (so casual observers know who is doing it).
• We will NOT go into the water. I have a 4-pronged"rake - hoe" that I will bring; it can reach out into the water 3-4 feet from land.
• If folks prefer to not bend over, might put a 2-3 inch finishing nail into the end of a pole to spear with! (no, not the fish!).
• If the weather is raining, we won't do it. The 10-day forecast looks good at this point.

Participants included Amy Landen, Jay Landen, Debi Wells, Tegan Baumann, Mary Officer, George Drake and John Olson. Several bags of debris were collected from all three ponds.

FEMA leads national-level exercises every two years. National Level Exercise (NLE) 2018 will examine the ability of all levels of government, private industry, and nongovernmental organizations to protect against, respond to, and recover from a major MidAtlantic hurricane. The scenario involves a major hurricane that makes landfall near Hampton Roads, Virginia, causing severe damage to residences, businesses, and critical infrastructure throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria last fall reinforced our need to prepare for hurricanes, and NLE 2018 provides a well-timed opportunity to apply lessons from those storms before the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1.

• NLE Overview
• NLE Fact Sheet
• Hurricane Playbook
• Webinar on Preparing
  for a Hurricane

• Emergency Communications Plan
• Emergency Financial First Aid Kit
• Red Cross Hurricane prepare Checklist

• SV Hurricane Preparedness Plan (draft)
• Our plan on the FEMA website
• QAC Hurricane Preparedness Website

CERT members and several people interested in joining CERT enjoyed a pot luck picnic on June 6 at the Clubhouse pavilion. A special thanks goes out to Mary Colling-Officer for organizing the event.

The June Libretto has a CERT article highlighting our Pot Luck picnic that was a lot of fun. The SV CERT is also highlighted on the QAC web page and there was an article including the SV CERT in the June 14 Shore Update and on their web page.

Don’t forget to stop by the Clubhouse east parking lot for the QAC EMS ambulance tour on Friday, June 22 at 1:30pm.

I clarified with HOA management that it IS all right for residents to display a File of Life sticker in their front window.

You can view a video on the ultimate survival backpack at https://youtu.be/8gxdjH3QjNU. (Note: this is a humorous clip, but it would be great if it worked)

Don’t forget the SV CERT members web pages. They are usually updated at least weekly so check back often.

Several members have not sent in their picture for a CERT ID badge. If we are deployed by QAC, these IDs will be used to identify us and to allow entry into restricted areas.

Assistant Chief Wheatley gave a presentation to Symphony Village about Emergency Medical Services in our county, certifications, tools, his passion for the job, and answered questions. Event was sponsored by the Symphony Village CERT team. For more info click here

Collaboratively with our colleagues in health care, emergency services, and government we will provide the citizens and visitors of Queen Anne’s County a premier community-based emergency medical services system through dedication and our staff’s desire for excellence.

The Emergency Medical Services Division is committed to providing the citizens and visitors of Queen Anne’s County an unparalleled system of emergency medical services delivered through the devotion, compassion, and expertise of our staff.

On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, 17 Symphony Village residents were given a tour of the Queen Anne's County Department of Emergency Services Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and 911 Center.

Thanks to QAC DES Director Scott Haas and Joe Cichocki for presenting the tour

The 911 Center handles over 90,000 calls per year. Their systems are compatible and interoperable with all Eastern Shore centers. The current system can locate a caller to within several hundred feet, but an upgraded system scheduled for installation within the year will be able to locate a caller to within a few feet.

Opioids include strong prescription pain relievers, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and tramadol. The illegal drug heroin is also an opioid. Heroin and opioid addiction has reached epidemic proportions in this country resulting in rising numbers of fatal overdoses. So far this year in Queen Anne's county there have been 100 overdoses and 13 drug related deaths. At the same time last year there were 68 overdoses and 5 deaths.

Cheap, potent, heroin is flooding across our borders. The most common local sources are in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Middletown, DE. There is no common profile for an opiate user and it affects all walks of life.

Naloxone (trade name NARCAN) is a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose. It is an opioid antagonist—meaning that it binds to opioid receptors and can reverse and block the effects of other opioids. It can very quickly restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped as a result of overdosing with heroin or prescrip-tion opioid pain medications. It is available without a prescription and is carried by all law enforcement personnel in Queen Anne's County. Sheriff Hofmann and most of his officers have experience in "bringing someone back to life" using NARCAN.

After Sheriff Hofmann's briefing, a demonstration was given by Deputy First Class Michael Piasecki and K-9 Zora. K-9s are used to search for drugs and explosives, locate missing people, find crime scene evidence, and attack people targeted by the police. The demonstration was very in-teresting showing how the K-9 could easily find drugs among several ob-jects. We learned that the animals were paid for with confiscated money from drug dealer arrests so they were free to the tax payer. Also, they are imported from Europe where they receive their basic training so com-mands are given in their native language such as Czech.