West Salem CERT Assesses Readiness in Joint Tabletop Drill

What has your CERT Team been up to?

On November 8th, twenty-one CERT members participated in our biannual deployment exercise at Roth’s Event Center. We develop these joint training events, held every spring and fall, in collaboration with our counterparts in the Portland NET program (which is simply CERT by another name). While deployment exercises typically involve showing up at our staging area and setting up as if a real emergency had occurred, this time we opted for a detailed tabletop event.

For these training scenarios, we define plausible local events to refresh our skills. Past training has covered everything from a Columbus Day-style windstorm and a tornado, to practicing a response to a volcano. However, because we often train for the worst-case scenario, most of our deployments focus on earthquakes. This recent exercise centered on a moderate earthquake and assessed what our response would look like two days after the initial event.

While we had twenty-one dedicated participants in West Salem, Portland NET had a fantastic turnout of around 190 participants across twelve teams. We are actively working to expand participation here in Salem as well. These types of training events are important to ensure that when something happens, when we get called upon, we won’t be trying to figure it all out as we go –  we’ll have some practice and experience to draw on.

New CERT Logo

Perhaps not as exciting as an earthquake drill, I want to recognize one of our own West Salem CERT members. While the core CERT logo is designed and mandated by FEMA for use nationwide, programs are permitted to modify it to reflect local identity by adding the city name and changing the skyline. CERT member Graham took on this task and successfully updated our logo, which was just accepted by the Salem CERT council this past week. We're proud to have local talent making our city’s identity official.

How to Get Involved and Contact Information

If you have questions about this article, preparedness in general, or would like to inquire about joining CERT, please contact me at PNMarkW2@gmail.com. You may also contact me about scheduling a presentation for your group. I've spoken to groups such as HOAs, neighborhood groups, and communities of faith.

Our next general meeting is January 10th from 9-11 am at the Roth’s Event Center (located behind Roth's Fresh Market on Wallace Rd in West Salem). All are welcome — you do not need to be a CERT member to attend. Looking ahead, a new CERT training class is tentatively scheduled to begin in early 2026. I will keep you posted as dates are confirmed.

For general information about CERT in Salem, you can search for West Salem CERT on Facebook or visit SalemOregonCERT.org.

If you have questions about this article, or would like to schedule a presentation for your HOA, neighborhood group, or community of faith (I’ve spoken to all of them!), please contact me, at PNMarkW2@gmail.com.

One last thing before I go…

‘Tis the season, and I won’t be writing to you again until after the holidays. So I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! See you next time in 2026!