CERT Almost every town has one.

[Myron]

C.E.R.T or Civilian Emergency Response Team

Most towns have them, they come out to help in all sorts of events. They provide support for emegency personel and victims on the scene. Everything from Rehab to handing out water bottles and power bars. They provide basic shelter and medical help when needed and can also assist in swift water rescue, high angle rescue, SAR and many other aspects that may be needed in an emergency event.

If your looking to volunteer, this is a good place to start. Get with your local CERT and set up a demo. Typically they get real excited. From there you can work on getting NIMS certified. Its a standard protocal when it comes to interfacing with EMS.

All Cert Teams are pretty well connected with local law enforcement and FD so its a good way to get your foot in the door.

Myron

[IBCrazy]

What's NIMS? Right now I'm grounded for the winter. I'm trying to help the forest service during wildfire situations. We're on the "don't ask/won't tell" system when it comes to how legal it is for me to volunteer to keep them safe with aerial support. Thus I'm trying to finish a ultra light aircraft just in case someone from the FAA has a bug about it they'll be answering how very dangerous a 1lb peice of foam is and how it isn't worth keeping firefighters safe. Of course I will likely be flying my 2lb peice of foam but it will look identical to the 1lb model so nobody will know the difference :)

-Alex

[SENTRY]

I just found this for my county and the surrounding counties. I'm going to pedal faster on my Skywalker - halt the current design spec and add some tricks just for SAR / EMS. Great info Myron!!!

[Myron]

N.I.M.S National Incident Management System

http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/CommunicationsInfoMngmnt.shtm

[airbagit13]

I agree great info.

[CaliDave]

Just finished faxing over my application for our local SAR (https://sites.google.com/a/alcosarinc.org/about/). I better get back to the gym in the event I actually get to hike my gear out on one of these to see if it could help ;-)

Worst case, I figure I better be able to help without my gear!

[texasyeeha]

Awesome info.

Thanks M

[BloomingtonFPV]

To prove how safe this is, I volunteer to let Alex hit me with his 1 pound plane going full speed. You did put the motor in the back, didn't you?

[CenTexFlyer]

Careful there BloomingtonFPV..... We flew up there to work on the Lauren Spierer case and got all tangled up with the PD there. We did everything we were supposed to do, but the FAA reversed their decision and made me look like I was lying to them. You might be OK if your out in the county working with S.O. though. They weren't involved in that one.

Gene

[CenTexFlyer]

Thus I'm trying to finish a ultra light aircraft just in case someone from the FAA has a bug about it they'll be answering how very dangerous a 1lb peice of foam is and how it isn't worth keeping firefighters safe.

-Alex

You're good to 4 lbs.

[WildWill]

I'm a member of the local Tech Rescue team and talked with my Capt and Lieutenant about the FPV project that I'm working on. They would be interested in using it for pre-planning of certain areas. I.E. the local river snags, and the local cliff areas.

[CenTexFlyer]

Perfect! If you haven't gotten a good (small) still imager you should look into that too. It helps to be able to give them individual images that can you can really "drill down" into for closer investigation. Most video systems - even the hi-def ones are generallty 5mp and they pixelate pretty quickly when you start zooming in.

Be advised - if the Obamanator signs the FAA appropriations bill, first responders will be able to fly in 90 days!

Gene

[CaliDave]

Starting my CERT courses in 2 weeks. Did the initial 3 hour course they have in my city to basically weed out the folks who don't want to stick with it. Also on the SAR side I just received notice I "successfully passed all phases of the initial application process" and was offered a position in the "2012 Basic Recruit Class of Search and Rescue" with my local Sheriff's office. When I interviewed I told them about my FPV experience and they were interested to see if/how it could help.

Of course there will be much more I'll learn from them and excited for a new adventure with SAR! They've setup a bunch of classes for us so that should be fun learning new stuff and meeting other folks. ;-)

[Myron]

Thats Awesome CaliDave.. Keep us posted...

Myron

[CaliDave]

Just graduated CERT tonight :)

My instructor is going to speak to the fire command to have them contact me about checking out my quad. Then I start my first course for the county Search and Rescue team on Thursday. That's gonna be a fair amount of work to get all the courses done they require and I hope I have enough time in my life for all this! The lamest part is the first responder courses are for about 6-7 weeks 8 hours a day on weekends!!! That's my FPV time! haha. Oh scheduling.

[WildWill]

Congrats CaliDave!!

[fireslayer26]

I'm a firefighter/paramedic with my local department and a member of our USAR (Urban Search And Rescue) team. When I get good enough at FPV I plan to introduce it to our USAR Chief and see what he thinks about me taking my gear on deployments. The last major deployment we went on was Katrina. FPV would have been great for helping us search.