On October 17, 1989, San Francisco experienced an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale. The aftermath of such an event and its effect on San Francisco's residents led to specific action. The San Francisco Fire Department, prompted by the residents in the City's Marina District, formed the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team Training Program, which currently provides training in disaster and emergency response. Since 1990 the NERT program has trained more than 17,000 San Francisco residents to be more self-sufficient for the first 72 hours after a major disaster. This has now extended itself to include the possibility of a terrorist attack. Through this program, individuals also learn hands-on disaster skills that will help them as members of an emergency response team, allowing them to act independently or as an adjunct to City emergency services.

What makes this program great are the volunteers and the exciting challenge to prepare people for the worst while everything is going well. Today I am excited about the future of the NERT Program, even with the challenges we face! The most obvious is securing funding; the not so obvious will come when we put our training to work during the next "real thing".

The NERT Training Program is a 20 hour comprehensive program consisting of six (6) class sessions lasting approximately 3 hours each. The training instructors are professional firefighters. There is no cost for our neighborhood training classes. There is a fee for private training. There are two disaster training drills held during the year to keep skills fresh and update NERT's.

Our Mission Statement is:
Beginning with ourselves, we will be prepared and work as an individual or together as emergency response teams to assist our families and neighbors in time of disaster and to be prepared to make decisions that do The Most Good For The Most People.

Lt. Erica Arteseros, NERT Coordinator
San Francisco Fire Department
2310 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 970-2022