Major disasters and emergencies are often hard to predict and aren’t always accompanied with the sound of a blaring alarm.

That’s why Campbell’s Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, is advocating that residents be as prepared as possible for emergencies that last a day, three days or even longer.

Like the Campbell Reporter Facebook page for neighborhood news and conversation from Campbell and beyond.

CERT provides classes and information to residents on how to prepare for large-scale emergencies and assist fellow residents when first responders are overwhelmed. The program stems from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and is coordinated by the Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Management.

On Sept. 2, Campbell CERT members were outside Home Depot on Hamilton Avenue introducing themselves to the community and passing out information to residents. The team is advocating the importance of creating emergency preparedness and child identification kits in case of child abductions.

Residents can join CERT by completing a six-day academy training provided by the Santa Clara County Fire Department. Campbell CERT president Mark Dunkle said the training teaches residents ages 16 and older how to organize neighborhoods and operations during a natural disaster, how to administer first aid, rescue people from under heavy objects, orchestrate a search and rescue in buildings, and report damages and medical emergencies to the city and state. It’s all capped by a “graduation exercise,” where all academy knowledge and training is put to the test during a simulation.

“It’s an exercise with victims,” said Lucy Johansen, program secretary. “They are trapped in buildings, and we have to go do our evaluation. That’s part of our training for the graduation.”

Reading this on your phone? Stay up to date with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.

Johansen added there are free refresher courses for CERT members during the year put on by County Fire. The cost for 21 hours of training is $35, which includes training materials. Classes are held in evenings.

The next academy training will be in January.

According to Dunkle, Campbell’s program has been around since the early 2000s, but fizzled out for a while before picking up steam again in 2013.

“Currently, there are about 225 members,” Johansen said.

Dunkle said the city would like to have roughly 1 percent of its residents join the program, which would be about 400 members.

According to FEMA, there are more than 2,700 local CERT programs nationwide, with more than 600,000 people trained since the program’s establishment in 1993.

“You don’t have to have a firefighter physique to be part of CERT,” Dunkle said. “We have jobs for people who have gone through the academy and for those who have selected to do something less, but want to help out.”

Get top headlines in your inbox every afternoon.

Sign up for the free PM Report newsletter.

To learn more about Campbell CERT, visit campbellcacert.org