Counties set to train CERT teams

Published 6:00 am Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Communities in southcentral Kentucky have an opportunity to bolster their emergency response capabilities through a grant that enables counties to form their own Community Emergency Response Teams.

The Barren River Area Development District secured about $140,000 in funding from the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, dollars that came to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

BRADD coordinated trainings over the summer among county emergency managers and volunteers who can now do the work to establish CERT teams and train volunteers in their own communities.

On Friday, emergency management officials from several counties came to Ephram White Park to pick up their complement of emergency medical supplies and equipment that will be given to CERT volunteers who undergo training.

“These teams are volunteer groups, hyperlocal emergency response teams that can work in neighborhoods during a disaster,” said Tyler Hopkins, BRADD community development specialist who wrote the grant. “They can help do some light search and rescue, basic first aid, put out small fires and ultimately work to fill in gaps in the emergency response apparatus during a disaster to help people like firefighters and search and rescue focus on what they need to be doing.”

A total of 500 CERT packs were delivered to BRADD to be split up equally among the district’s 10-county coverage area, with the packs including supplies like flashlights, helmets, hard hats, notebooks, tools, pop-up tents, personal protective equipment, first aid kits and assorted field operation manuals.

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Simpson County Emergency Management Director Robert Palmer said his office began teaching CERT volunteers 17 years ago, and as more people received training, more interest was developed in establishing a countywide CERT program.

“Every person that we can teach is a person or potentially a family that can better be taken care of during a disaster,” Palmer said. “If it grows into something like a team, then they’ve got a neighborhood that can be protected potentially before first responders may be able to get there.”

Hopkins said the training is meant to enable volunteers to supplement the work that fire departments and county-funded search and rescue teams perform during emergencies.

If CERT volunteers are strategically placed in neighborhoods, that can help jumpstart the emergency response, an asset especially for a region that has been hit by tornadoes, flooding and winter storms in the past five years, Hopkins said.

Palmer said the first aid training and equipment can come in handy outside of a disaster response context, such as when someone encounters a vehicle accident.

“I encourage the communities in our region to reach out to their officials to find out if they’re participating in this and find out when and where trainings are taking place,” Palmer said. “Take the training – it doesn’t cost anything but time. It’s a 30-hour class, and by the time they get all their units in it teaches people what they can do to take care of themselves and their family and what they can do to keep safe during an emergency.”