In an emergency, there are often more people in need of help than first responders can get to quickly. In times of no emergency, there’s often need for people to help support public events like festivals or community clean-up days.

That’s where CERT comes in.

Homewood is in the process of forming its first Community Emergency Response Team. The first group of volunteers (self included) completed the basic training class by participating in an emergency simulation on March 21.

The simulated emergency facing 36 Homewood residents seemed real enough because the village had a brush with it in real life less than two years ago, when a tornado tore up several neighborhoods and parks.

CERT trainees were instructed to respond to the aftermath of a strong storm that damaged a school. The training exercise was held at James Hart School, so that added to the realism.
We split into four teams, and each team performed two types of emergency response that CERT might be asked to do in a real emergency: damage assessment and search and rescue.
The exercise was the culmination of an eight-week class that covered basics of emergency response, from triage to disaster psychology.

At the first meeting, participants introduced themselves and spoke about why they signed up. Some people were experienced in some aspects of emergency response, some were newbies (like me). Some said they had lived in Homewood for decades. Some had been here for just a few years.

The most common threads among the reasons for joining were a desire to be better prepared and a desire to serve the community.

The class was led by Homewood Trustee Phil Mason, whose day job is as a preparedness manager with Cook County Department of Emergency Management and Regional Security. Assistant Village Manager Terence Acquah led the development of the program, and Village Manager Napoleon Haney was a member of the class along with 39 other Homewood residents.

“This might surprise a lot of people, but government response is not what saves you during a disaster. … It’s community. It’s people helping each other. It’s neighbors helping neighbors. We just really want to be able to understand better how we can all help each other and how we can mitigate, prepare, respond and recover from all of the disasters that we may face,” Mason said at the first class meeting.

He emphasized that CERT training does not make people professional emergency responders, but team members need to understand how to respond in order to provide useful support.
“You’re going to learn skills that help you take care of your family, help you help your neighbors, and help you build community resilience,” he said. Those skills can make the team a force multiplier for professional responders during an emergency.

After the final exercise, Greg and Catherine Dixon said they signed up because they were interested in learning safety skills that would help their family and the community in case of an emergency.

“One of the most important things we learned was how to prepare for a disaster, creating a family safety plan and having a disaster supply kit,” they said.

Their favorite parts of the class were the simulations that gave them a chance to apply what they learned, including the search and rescue exercise at the public works facility and the fire safety exercise supervised by CERT leaders and Homewood Fire Chief Bob Grabowski.

Me too. The fire safety exercise was the first time in my life I’d ever used a fire extinguisher. Now I feel better prepared if I ever have to use one to fight a fire.

Mason said he was delighted with the turnout and results for Homewood’s first CERT training. He said the next step is to get the team up and running, and depending on how that goes, he hopes there will be opportunities to expand it and maybe create more teams in neighboring communities.

Anti-racism project

At the No Kings Homewood rally on March 28 I talked with a retired Black woman who shared some of her thoughts about why protesting the Trump administration was important. She pondered whether to give me her name, then finally decided she shouldn’t. She thought her husband wouldn’t want to risk more trouble.

She said the couple moved to Homewood in 2019, and shortly after they arrived, someone placed a noose on their property. 

I know Homewood and Flossmoor residents pride themselves, justifiably, on being inclusive, on valuing the diversity of the community. 

That doesn’t immunize us against racism. It does mean we should be better prepared to actively combat it than many communities. We should know well that the fight against racial hierarchy is not, and maybe never will be, over. The report of a Black couple being subjected to an object of terror in our town should spur us all to continued action. 

One way to prepare for action is to join Books Without Borders. The next meeting of the community book club that has been studying and discussing racism will be at 6:45 p.m. May 19 at Flossmoor Public Library, 1000 Sterling Ave. 

The featured book, “Don’t Go,” is set close to home. It looks at the neighborhood stereotypes that help keep segregation in place in Chicago generations after the legal mechanisms that helped create it were reformed.

The club is a great way to continue the effort to arm our community with knowledge and courage in order to grow our anti-racism skills. Whether you’re new to learning about racism or are well-versed in the history of racism, there’s no better way to be effective than working together.