The Cities of Buena Park, Cypress, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, and Westminster had scheduled a 20-hour Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training academy at JFTB-Los Alamitos on March 20-28, 2020. Out of an abundance of caution, we are postponing this academy to a future date, which is to be determined.

The CDC recommends that older adults and other high risk individuals “limit close contact” and “avoid crowds as much as possible” during the COVID-19 outbreak. By postponing this non-essential gathering, we can reduce the risk to CERT participants and allow cities and emergency agencies to focus on their primary response missions.

We sincerely thank the Joint Forces Training Base, along with all who had expressed interest in this course. We could not conduct this high quality training academy and exercise without the help of our sponsoring cities, response agencies, instructors, and the volunteer members and leaders of our CERT Team.

You can read the full notice from the Team Coordinators here.

We do not yet have new Academy dates but will keep you advised here and via emails to our members.

Additionally, the Seal Beach Run on 3/28, the City of Anaheim Police & Fire Departments event on 4/2, and the Westminster Spring Festival on 4/4 have also been canceled. 

We had a great December Team event and the food was outstanding. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend.

2019 was a terrific year for West Orange County CERT. As a Team:

• Participated in 38 different events
• We logged more than 2,500 hours on behalf of our communities
• We had 50 members put in 20 or more hours (up a dozen from 2018) and 20 of those members put in more than 40 hours
• Showed more than 50 community members how they and their families can become more “ready” for disaster
• Held 5 Neighbor 4 Neighbor^® events and logged almost 150 hours in the process

And that does not include the hundreds of hours the Team has invested in both online and in person training and development.

It’s an incredible investment benefiting both our Team and the communities that we serve.

Thanks to each and everyone of you who participated in some way during 2019. It could have been at an event, taking a course, helping at the Academy or some other behind the scenes effort. We could not have done it without you. THANK YOU!!

And we are looking forward to an even better 2020. Make sure to stay connected and join us in helping our communities become more prepared and safer.

Here’s a recap of the year that was 2019