As I said before, I've had no direct association with CERT. However, I have had a good deal of experience as a member of, and working with other volunteer SAR teams. I happen to think volunteerism is a good thing. This thread has made me more curious about CERT.

That seems to be the case, from what I've seen. As others have noted, CERT seems to vary a lot from place to place (and change over time). This is fairly typical of volunteer SAR teams as well. Much depends on the motivation and commitment of members. It also helps when there are actual real world call outs from time to time. I was chatting with a member of another volunteer team in our area, and he observed that there is a happy medium of call-out volume. Too few call-outs and people get bored and loose their motivation to maintain training. Too many call-outs and folks get burned out, and tired of taking time off from work.

How often and in what capacity a volunteer team (of any sort) gets used will depend a lot on what sort of relationship has been built up with the local official first response (FD and LE). Here in Alaska we live in a vast land with few people, and an environment that can be severe. Local authorities are spread very thin, and Alaskans have a long history of volunteerism. I've been told that the Denali CERT team (based up in Healy near Denali National Park) works with the NPS rangers with searches in the park. Down on the Kenai, South of Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula CERT seems to be very active, are trying to obtain grants for some significant equipment (eg. portable shelters), and are becoming part of the local response scene. See their newsletter.

It is possible the paperwork is more to help the Incident Management Team do their job. They can't properly allocate resources unless they know which areas have already been searched. Incident management requires a two way flow of information. ICS can involve a lot of forms. When I first got involved as a volunteer SAR responder I tended to think ICS wasn't that important. And I'd be the first to admit that ICS classes are rather boring.

It is true that in a small incident you can get by with a minimal command structure. But once an incident grows beyond a certain size, or goes into multiple operational periods, the command structure becomes crucial. After having experienced a few major events I've learned just how crucial it is that the Incident Management Team does a good job. As I get older and slower climbing the hills, I'm transitioning more into IMT roles. Awhile back I completed ICS-300, which was useful, but not that exciting. More recently I completed MLPI (Managing the Lost Person Incident). It was intense, and interesting. Hopefully it will help us do a better job in future incidents.