By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
The Brandon Township Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is looking for volunteers.
“It’s just another way to help the community and assist,” said Gary Spalo, a member of CERT. “Some police departments and some fire departments think that they don’t need them.”
The primary purpose of CERT is to serve with the Brandon Fire Department as additional assistance. While they don’t replace the firemen, they do assist in critical emergencies with them.
“It’s been proven that when something catastrophic happens, there are not enough people who know how to respond,” said Spalo, a retired Oakland County Sheriff officer. “Analysis from 9/11 showed that they just didn’t have enough people to help the injured and bring aid to the chaos.”
The CERT team provides their volunteers with the training and equipment needed, though some members do augment their issued equipment with some personal items. Their missions are to take care of the CERT members family first, deploy to an emergency as ordered and to provide life saving emergency care until better trained and equipped medical services arrive on the scene.

“It’s an opportunity to help your local people,” said Spalo. “We’re not replacing any firemen, we’re just some people able to respond to what is happening in the township.”
Among the things CERT does are light search and rescue, manning triage sites, traffic direction assistance with events or emergency situations and other tasks to assist the fire department in critical emergency situations.
CERT trains under the Citizen Corps concept as recommended by the Post 9/11 Commission, and their training standards are set by the Department of Homeland Security FEMA. The team meets once a month to handle unit business and to train in skills.
To volunteer with CERT, contact the Brandon Fire Department at 248-627-4000, Monday-Friday for an application. A background check is required before acceptance to the team.