According to National CERT, Disasterville is an interactive hands-on activity that supports preparedness program recruitment, encourages sponsor buy-in, helps as a great knowledge refresher and training tool, and is useful for preparedness education. Disasterville is useful for Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), Medical Reserve Corps (MRCs), and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOADs), as well as local officials, Emergency Managers, professional responders, and the general public.
Disasterville is designed as a table-top activity simulating a town set up with small buildings and figurines. The toolkit has markers to set up a disaster scene of your choosing, including infrastructure damages, structure damages, and victim conditions. This incorporates additional table top components such as an emergency operation center, a medical treatment area, and a hospital or healthcare area.
Disasterville is a Great Visual Tool
- Show Elected Officials, Emergency Managers, and other community leaders how their city works without CERT and how using CERT can benefit response and recovery. This can help determine additional community needs, response gaps, and other ways that CERT can benefit the community.
- Help individuals see the interchange and working relations between emergency management, professional responders, local health care providers, volunteer programs and community members.
- Show community members possible first response limitations in the event of a major disaster, discover the importance of personal preparedness, and of being trained in basic disaster response skills.
- Have CERT volunteers practice setting up and operating their CERT Organization/ Command Structure, using their documents, testing communication plans, gathering info and reporting it to the Emergency Operation Center for situational awareness, setting up a medical treatment area, triaging, and more.
(scroll down to find links & free resources to create your own Disasterville)
CREATE YOUR OWN DISASTERVILLE
Download all the instructions and materials you need to create your own Disasterville kit at http://bit.ly/dvtoolkit (links to Google drive with free downloadable files)
Be Ready Utah video of Disasterville in action and explained viewable here (3 min 31 sec vid)
Disasterville is the result of a collaboration created in a cooperative effort by Will Lusk- Cache County Utah Emergency Management, Sandy Spendlove- State of Utah CERT Coordinator, Katie Hull- State of Utah and Weber-Morgan MRC Coordinator, Talisha Bacon- Utah County MRC Coordinator, Suz Roam- Southwest MRC Coordinator, and supported by James Ray- State of Utah Division of Emergency Management, and Stacy Sayre- HHS Region 8 MRC Liaison. Special Recognition to Logan City Utah Fire Department for the original creation of the Bradyville/Disasterville concept. More at https://nationalcert.org/resources/cert-activity-kits/disasterville