Getting ready for a potential 9.0 earthquake isn’t something many western Washingtonians think about on a daily basis.
But for Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, class coordinator and instructor Susan Waters of Issaquah, teaching others how to prepare for the effects of such a terrible yet possible natural disaster is a calling.
Waters’s service has not gone unnoticed. Gov. Jay Inslee honored Waters with the Governor’s Volunteer Service Award, presented by Mayor Fred Butler at the last City Council meeting.
“The city of Issaquah is very fortunate to have Susan as a volunteer and we are very proud of her work,” Butler said.
Waters has been involved with CERT since she took the course herself in 2009. She decided to take the training because she had been a witness to quite a few terrifying situations, such as multiple car accidents, a woman fainting in a museum and a different woman collapsing in a parking lot.
“I hate the feeling of helplessness,” Waters told the Reporter. “I tend to be the one to want to jump in and do something — so I thought maybe I should get some training.”
CERT classes, which meet once a week for nine weeks, use a national curriculum to teach people how to prepare for natural disasters, and how to deal with the effects of them afterwards should they occur. Each area of the country focuses on the dangers that are most likely in that region — in the Northwest, this means a focus on earthquakes.
Waters said that she has taught not only newcomers to the area who have never experienced an earthquake in their lives, but also lifelong Northwesterners who have never learned what to do in such a terrifying situation.
“Having supplies ready, having a basic plan is very important,” Waters said. “Once it happens is not the time to start planning.”
Disaster training is different from emergency training, Waters said.
“In an emergency, you call 911. In a disaster, because of the scope, the sad truth is that you’re on your own; [emergency responders] aren’t coming for quite a long time.”
Participants learn how to help people on their own, and to treat the “three killers”: airway obstruction, severe bleeding and shock. They practice triage, learning to classify who should be helped first based on medical need, and even discuss disaster psychology, in terms of the decisions that have to be made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Also in the course plan is learning what to look for in the “golden hour” after a disaster, such as fires or gas leaks.
The last course is always an earthquake simulation, in which volunteers use makeup to depict themselves as blood-covered victims in need of rescue. Local high schoolers especially get into this, Waters said. Many people don’t realize exactly what a large-scale earthquake could mean.
“Almost everything on the grocery store shelves arrives by truck,” Waters said. And if roads are toppled, then “those shelves will be bare very quickly.”
She stresses that having supplies on hand ahead of time, making a family plan and coordinating a strategy with neighbors are all vital.
CERT is not only for disaster preparedness newcomers; Waters said that the program encourages alumni to come back and sit in on classes for free in order to refresh their skills.
“It’s kind of like muscle memory,” she said.
In addition to CERT, Waters is secretary for the Issaquah Citizens Corps and a member of the Medical Reserve Corps. In 2015, she worked with the Medical Reserve Corps and King County Public Health Reserve Corps to provide free medical, dental and visual care to over 4,000 people who would otherwise not have been able to afford it.
“It was phenomenal,” she said. “There were people who hadn’t been able to read for 12 years because they couldn’t afford new glasses.”
The next nine-week CERT course starts Sept. 21 and meets for three hours every Wednesday evening. Waters encourages people of all ages to sign up and learn how to prepare themselves for anything.
After all, “knowledge is power,” she said.
