Volunteering

The ICC Volunteer and Emergency Worker Overview document, available from the Navigation section of this page, describes how the ICC and partner programs work together. In summary, as with all our disaster preparedness programs we start with the most important people - you and your family. From there we can expand into your immediate neighborhood and see how the Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) program helps you develop a short term plan to address immediate needs of your unique neighborhood. Once you, your family and your neighborhood are taken care of, you may wish to help the community at the city level. This might start by buddying up with other CERTs (because you always work as a team) and performing a Rapid Impact Survey (RIS). When you're helping the city as a volunteer, we want you to have the maximum level of liability protection and support of the Incident Command System (ICS), so encourage you to sign up to become an Emergency Worker.

Your obligations as an Emergency Worker: 

As an emergency worker you are still 100% volunteer. There is no obligation to participate in any specific event. However, you are expected to participate in at least one event each year, such as a training exercise, drill, seminar or deployment.

How to sign up as an Emergency Worker:

You will need to take two FEMA on-line classes and pass the on-line exams. These classes are availble to the public at no cost. The two classes are:

IS-100.b - Introduction to Incident Command System, ICS-100 - available on-line at http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is100b.asp

IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction - available at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is700.asp

There are also a couple of forms to fill out - the City of Issaquah Volunteer Agreement and the Issaquah Citizens Corps Application. These include your application for a Washington State Patrol background check. Forms are available by contacting Brenda Bramwell at brenda.bramwell@issaquahcitizencorps.com

Several forms of communication will be used to contact you if there is need for ICC volunteer deployment. This applies to CERT and MRC volunteers. The form of communication used will vary based on the following factors:

• The Scale and Urgency of the event
• The Forms of Communication available at the time

MyStateUSA (www.mystateusa.com) is used for general city wide distribution of informational and deployment messages. All ICC volunteers have been registered with MyStateUSA and notified via email. The MyStateUSA portal is where you maintain your chosen contact information and preferences.

Follow this 4 Step Process:

1)      Ensure the safety of yourself and your family, and your readiness to deploy - which will always be your number 1 priority

2)      Look and Listen for information about the deployment. The following forms of communication may be used to contact you:

1. Email
2. Phone
3. Text Messaging
4. ICC Web Site: www.issaquahcitizencorps.com
5. FRS Radio: Channel 2, Sub-channel 0
6. Ham Radio:

 i.      Primary: 444.525 plus 5 MHz offset, tone 103.5 (Fire Repeater)

ii.      Secondary/Backup: 445.975, tone 071.9 (Simplex)

ii.      Last resort: 146.56, tone 71.9 (Simplex) EOC Coordination channel

7.      Radio: AM 1700 (http://www.ci.issaquah.wa.us/News.asp?NewsID=961 )

3)      Reach out and attempt to initiate contact, if you haven’t heard from anyone already

1. Speak up on the radio: “This is Alan, CERT Team 12, does anyone know if there is a CERT deployment in effect?”
2. Call the EOC at 425.837.3180 or 425.391.1042 (if EOC switch is down)
3. Initiate contact with your immediate CERT Team members:

i.      Use your document of key contact information, as agreed within your team, for intra-team communications

ii.      For email you can use Cert-team-xx@issaquahcitizencorps.com (where xx is your team/zone number, e.g. 12 for Talus)

iii.      Use your team’s designated meeting place

iv.      Find a Buddy to work with

4)      Formalize your deployment status:

1. If you are a Permanent Emergency Worker, you are formalized as soon as you receive instructions
2. As a general volunteer, complete a Temporary Emergency Worker Registration to become a Temporary Emergency Worker for the duration of the deployment
3. When formally deployed you should know the Mission Number and your Team Leader
4. Follow your instructions under the Incident Command System

“Self Activation” is your personal choice to take action before being asked to do so under a declared Mission Number. When self activated you are only protected by the Good Samaritan Act.