Neighbors mobilize: Organization and training help reduce disaster toll

Editor's note: New estimates for what a 7.0 earthquake could do to the Wasatch Front are scary: It could kill more than 6,000 people, injure 90,000 and cause a $40 billion economic hit. In a five-part series, the Deseret Morning News describes such a future quake — as if worst-case scenarios proved to be true.

Immediately after the great 7.0 earthquake of 2008 stops rumbling, help is quickly on the way for everyone in Scott Johnson's West Valley City neighborhood.

It is not from the fire department or police. They will be too busy with collapsed schools, nursing homes, shopping centers and other big problems to allow coming to Johnson's residential neighborhood for days.

The help is coming instead from neighbors whom Johnson organized in advance. They have written plans to follow and are well trained. Meanwhile, residents in less-organized neighborhoods are merely "winging it" — and many die needlessly amid chaos, including untrained, would-be rescuers who enter buildings that collapse on them.

Johnson helped his neighborhood form a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). In fact, Johnson became sort of a poster child about how to do that and helped many other areas in his city do the same.

Back in 2006, state emergency officials predicted accurately that a 7.0 quake would overwhelm government resources. They warned that how well residents would fare depended on their personal and family preparedness, including CERT training that shows neighbors how to help each other safely.

Most local cities had offered CERT training for years, but only a small percentage of people took it (a list of local governments offering CERT training was long available online at www.citizencorps.gov/cert/).

In 2006, the state Office of Emergency Services said West Valley City had an especially strong program. And West Valley officials pointed to Johnson's work as an example of how they would like to see all neighborhoods organize.

After Johnson took a CERT course from the city, which teaches topics from light search and rescue to basic medical help, he wanted to organize his area. The city gave him letters backing such efforts, plus manuals to help residents prepare. The city also has a manual online about how to organize areas at www.wvcert.org.

Johnson went door-to-door to his neighbors with materials explaining plans. Their area — 209 houses within boundaries of the LDS Church's Colony Ward, roughly at 4800 West and 4400 South — would be divided into many small areas with "street leaders" and "assistant street leaders."