Thursday, April 10, 2014

Around South County (4/10/2014): Laguna Niguel CEPA Academy holds a Graduation Exercise For its' 2014 Class

The City of Laguna Niguel held a graduation ceremony for the Community Emergency Prepardness Academy Class of 2014.    It all began with an alarm that began an exercise to simulate a real life emergency entailing victims that had to be tended to and rescued.  

Member of the Community participated in the mock exercise by playing victims with various degrees of injuries.  A contingent of Scouts from Troop 772 "The Trailmasters" in the City of Laguna Niguel joined to support this exercise:


This was to showcase the incident command system (ICS) which is activated in emergencies which meant that victims had to be identified, classified according to their degrees of injuries and thereafter brought out of a building and released to emergency personnel to be sent forth to area hospitals.    The Orange County Fire Authority, Doctors Ambulance along with Team Laguna Niguel--the Citizen Emergency Response Team (CERT) were also an integral part of the event.

After the end of the exercise, the graduation ceremonies began with the pledge of allegiance by Scouts from Troop 772.  Afterwards, an after action analysis of the exercise was given by some of the key stakeholders--including the safety officers from Team Laguna Niguel and the Orange County Fire Authority.   The graduating class were thereafter awarded their Certificates and all were treated to Coffee and Cake Afterwards.  

These graduates are now Ambassadors of Safety and Preparedness for the Community.  The basic message was this:  It is not a question of if, but when the next big calamity occurs.  It is important that all are prepared.  

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