I said I would post some comments afterwards, so here goes...

I DO think that if CERT training is offered in ones area, take advantage of the training. Even if it is bad, you will gain information that could be valuable to you in a number of ways, depending on your personal circumstances before and during a disaster.

I learned about CERT. That was great - I probably could have gotten the same info from reading through the course info. Afterwards I read about where our Governor directed 99.7% of the grant money (not for CERT and not outside of Cook County)... it's amazing the local folks got ANY grant money.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what exactly I did learn skills-wise, though. Ummm... wife and 3 sons reported they learned some things, but no one has been specific about exactly what.

The instructors seemed individually knowledgable and at least two were what I would call "professional", although neither of those two represented any local emergncy services organizations in any way. I think that the total lack of effective involvement by local emergency services organizations is inexcusable and that situation concerns me greatly.

NOTE: I was already concerned about the situation regarding local emergency coordinators - they are ignoring some extremely serious matters by not involving certain organizations, and I'm speaking professionally on THAT from firsthand knowledge and experience. The CERT training, to my dismay, confirmed my already low opinions of the local ESDAs and munincipal "emergency" coordinators (no exceptions). Back to the CERT training...

Poor quality instruction and very poor quality handouts. I printed copies of the materials from the fedgov - what was so hard about that? Looked like someone laboriously printed from the HTML and then did a poor job of photocopying, collating, hole punching, and assembling the mess. As for the instruction - some people can teach and some can't. We had "can'ts" for instructors. Nice people; hard working; dedicated; knew their stuff; couldn't teach for beans. Really - it was noteworthy for uniformly poor instruction.

Some of the material was really wrong - For example, they presented a lot of detail on California-style connecting and bracing of HW heaters, urging folks to go home right away and "fix up" the HWH at home... 1) We're located as close to zero as one can be for earthquake hazard on planet earth (spare me analysis - this is / has been a professional matter for me for a couple of decades - we don't have a significant hazard exactly right here). 2) The hookups they spent quite a bit of time on for gas and water are illegal here.. I guess it was just in the material, so they had to cover it... Ahem. There were many other technical inaccuracies, but the majority were benign in the sense that they would cause no harm. Example of a minor one: Boil water for at least 10 minutes to disinfect it.

Two 9-10 hour days, the vast majority of which was classroom lecture. But the vast majority of it should have been hands-on. Except for using ABC extinguishers on real flames, what little hands-on there was (and I mean VERY little) was really bad. Example: removing a victim pinned under a slab. Materials were a few buckets of (new) 2x4 scraps for cribbing, one 4' pry bar, and starring as a slab of concrete, a small folding table. I could make a telephone call and get them everything they need any weekday, free. They could keep the slab(s) or have them removed afterwards for free. THEY could make the phone call... this is NOT hard. It was totally bogus - a folding table does not react to prying like a slab no matter how hard one pretends. I saw scary stuff... And now we have a bunch of people who think they know how to do this - I shudder.

The disaster drill was inside the local ARC building. Nice new building - about 2 1/2 years old. Again, a telephone call (say, to me or any of a number of other local officials) and they could have had real buildings to train in - all sorts, from houses to industrial, including some that can be torn up. Realistic opportunites for free.

"Tell-Show-Do" - this is a time-honored formula precisely because it works rather well. It was not evident at the training we attended. In fact, some hands-on training was skipped because "...it's cold outside...". Well, gosh, I bet nothing bad could EVER happen here unless the weather was just perfect.

In a related observation: I think the instructors had no clue how to set-up and conduct hands-on training, no clue how to resource it, and had a STRONG desire to conduct the training in two long days instead of over a longer period of time. Now that last part is not meant as a criticism - that sort of decision has to be made for training volunteers, and IMHO their decision was not a bad one. But how they carried it out was poor.

I could keep going on in this vein, but I don't believe this is a typical situation from what I have heard. So it was a bit of a stinker here; Schwert and others had completely different (good) experiences with CERT training that I like to believe are more typical.

Equipment... actually, given the intent described to us, I think they made some good decisions for the long haul even though it is a bit crippling at first - this is a money-constrained situation. Good hard hats, good enough gloves, OK goggles, lots of barrier gloves, and (important) good daypacks - very sturdy; good bang-for-buck. Battery-less flashlights (the shake-to-charge type LED) were, IMHO, a good idea for this - nothing to maintain, no bulb to break, no batteries to be checked. Modest light output? Sure. But they worked fine and would get the job done. All of us Troop 258 folks had brighter lights in our pockets (EDC stuff) and I've dropped another hand torch (3AA x 4 LED) in my CERT pack, but actually a smart choice. Very little in the way of FAK items - not even enough to handle a moderate cut, BUT they did spend an acceptable amount of time discussing (not simply lecturing) on expedients. The stated intent is to issue lots more of that stuff when money permits. I suggest that meanwhile, they include a "chinese menu" of items that folks can stuff in the packs for little or no cost. I'd rather have clean towels, sheets, sanitary napkins, vetwrap, etc. already in the pack than have to scrounge on-site, at least until I run out...

Both groups did VERY well in the drill, despite the handicaps. I was impressed with the participants. And I'll give credit to the instructors for whatever they did to instill that attitude in the participants. It was not all bad, to be certain. And some of our instructers actually have deployed to regional disasters to perform CERT-related tasks, which lent credibility to the whole deal. They didn't do SAR, of course, but they DID do many other CERT tasks in real disasters.

If I had written this weeks earlier, I would have ranted more. My large concerns are that the local agencies continue to completely miss the boat (and CERT is about the least of those concerns) and that a lot of people left here thinking they are now ready to deal with CERT tasks in the real world.

Again, I think this is potentially great training if it is offered in your area. Those of us in areas with high probabilities of large-scale disasters especially...

Tom