Communication Tools Make Monterey’s CERT Self-Sufficient

Monterey’s (CA) diverse topography makes it vulnerable to a wide variety of natural disasters. Responding to growing citizen demand to provide disaster response training, the Monterey Fire Department brought the San Francisco Fire Department’s highly successful Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) program to the city in 1994.

“The question with most community response team programs is how they are going to communicate,” said retired California Highway Patrol Officer Tim McFaddan. “You need to be self-sufficient if you are going to deliver in a crisis.”

In response, Monterey NERT took a bold step and obtained three Federal Communications Commission-licensed frequencies dedicated to the team. Not long after, the FCC mandated all commercial and public safety license holders to narrowband their licensed channels. “We looked at hurricanes Katrina and Sandy; both areas lost cellphones and Internet for up to a month,” McFaddan said. “We knew if we wanted to do the most good for the most people, then we needed to have something more reliable than cellphones.”