Trinidad CERT stages realistic disaster drill with volunteer victims

Fake blood, torn clothing and simulated trauma turned Trinidad Town Hall into a sharper test of readiness than a classroom lecture could deliver. Trinidad’s Community Emergency Response Team staged a first aid refresher and live exercise with volunteer victims, aiming to put responders under the kind of pressure they would face when a real earthquake, tsunami or medical emergency hits the coast.

Co-leader Geoff Austin said the exercise was designed to produce a visceral reaction, so volunteers were not only learning procedures in the abstract but seeing, up close, what a damaged scene can look like. The goal was to prepare neighbors to stabilize a situation, direct people and bridge the gap before professional responders can arrive. Mayor Cheryl Kelly, who took part in a previous exercise, described the experience as fun but still serious, a mix that fits a town where emergency response can quickly become a matter of survival.

That urgency reflects Trinidad’s geography. Humboldt County’s tsunami maps identify Trinidad Harbor, Trinidad State Beach, College Cove, the Trinidad Pier area and low-lying parts of Scenic Drive as hazard areas. The city’s map says most of Trinidad, along with Patrick’s Point Drive, Trinidad Rancheria and Trinidad Head, falls outside the tsunami zone, but county guidance warns that the maps are built around worst-case scenarios, including a magnitude 9 Cascadia fault event. In that setting, a strong earthquake is treated as a possible tsunami warning.

Larry Goldberg, another CERT co-leader, has stressed that earthquakes are not a remote possibility here and that outside help could take days or weeks to reach the community, if it comes quickly at all. That is why the drill focused not just on victims and first aid, but on the broader role CERT is expected to play in a coastal emergency.

The City of Trinidad agreed at its Aug. 22, 2023 City Council meeting to sponsor a volunteer-based CERT for the Greater Trinidad Area. FEMA says CERT trains volunteers in fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations, and the city says local CERT activity can also include evacuation-center support, sheltering, water, food and supply distribution, tsunami drills, public preparedness sessions and traffic management at community events.

County minutes from August 2024 said Trinidad CERT had 20 active members and had been sworn in in January, with plans for semiannual or quarterly training and possible cross-training with CAL FIRE. A Trinidad Disaster Preparedness Training event was also listed for May 11, 2024, showing the town has been building a steady routine rather than relying on one-off drills. The latest exercise pushed that effort one step further, with volunteers helping train the people who may be first on the scene when seconds count.