usDART welcomes the DART class of 2010 to the DART family. 42 residents of Walnut Creek and surrounding areas started the Disaster Animal Response Team Training on April 22nd.
One month, 20 hours of classroom training and one day long drill later 25 participants received their certificates.
The DART drill took place in Moraga, at Fire Station 41. Participants worked in three teams (Intake, Animal Care, Logistics) and rotated throughout the day.
Intake was subdivided into three intake teams of 2-3 participants. Each time performed intake on a number of animals. DART staff brought in animals and worked with the intake team to make sure that the animal was properly documented and recorded. Since this was the first time that the teams had to do this by themselves and because of the pressure of the long line of people and animals waiting, intake became a very hectic area.
Fortunately, cool heads (and training) prevailed. Nevertheless, it took on average 12 minutes to process an animal and get it ready to go to Animal Care. Even with more experience it is clear that this puts a limit on the number of animals that can be checked in. If an intake team can process 4 or 5 animals per hour and if there are 3 intake teams, it may take a long time before people and their animals are checked in.
The second part of each rotation was outtake. This went much faster than intake. The good news is that we lost no animals and that all paperwork submitted by participants was in perfect order!
The Animal Care area was not as hectic as the intake areas. This is important: animals need peace and quiet to be able to calm down after having been evacuated and then separated from their owners. Participants familiarized themselves with the mechanics, the real-world application, of everything that they had learned about Animal Care in class.
The final station was logistics. The Animal Services Emergency Trailer had been brought to the drill area and participants unloaded the entire trailer, then made an inventory of its contents, removed excess or unneeded materials and then restocked the trailer. This was done in record time. Last time DART did this for Animal Services it took an entire day. This time, the job was done in little more than 3 hours!
Finally, after a debriefing, participants received their certificates and ID badges. They were then sworn in as CERT Disaster Service Workers (with the CERT Animal Care and Sheltering specialty).
And thanks to our furry volunteers:
