Berkeley CERT 2014 Emergency Prep Fair Protect Kids and Pets Khin Chin Berkeley CERT Program Manager Berkeley Fire Department/OES 4/26/2014
Acknowledgements Special thanks and acknowledgements go to the following key contributors to the development and delivery of the 2014 Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair: The 2014 Berkeley CERT Emergency Prep Fair Planning Team Gradiva Couzin, Kim Tonkyro, David Snippen, Emily Colwell, Mary McBride, Sarah Jones, Bill Springer, Elaina Lovejoy, Roger Sharpe, Chadidjah McFall, Susan Snyder, George Nace, Jenny Wenk, Shawn Connors, Khin Chin Berkeley Fire Department Bay Area Rapid Transit City of Berkeley Parks Recreation and Waterfront Department Berkeley Public Library City of Berkeley Public Works Department City of Berkeley Public Health Division Berkeley Animal Care Services Berkeley Unified School District The fair would not have been possible without the contributions of over 150 volunteers, donations from local businesses, and support from hundreds of community organizations and individuals. Page 2
Executive Summary This After Action Report is intended to assist the City of Berkeley s Office of Emergency Services and the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program by identifying strengths, by identifying potential areas for further improvement, and by recommending follow-up actions learned from the 2014 Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair. The 2014 Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair was held at North Berkeley BART Station on April 26, 2014. The theme of the fair focused on taking preparedness actions aimed towards children and pets. The Fair was scheduled from 10am to 2pm. Approximately 2000 community members attended. Event activities were designed to engage community members in taking action to better prepare themselves and their families for emergencies. The Fair brought participants together by providing a family and kid-friendly environment to enjoy a day of fun and learning while improving the disaster readiness of our community. An important aspect of the event was the engagement of community volunteers in the process of designing, planning, and delivering the Fair. Community engagement and involvement in the process were as important as the event itself. Page 3
Photos: Mark Coplan Page 4
Strengths Key strengths identified included: The Fair was supported by broad participation from community stakeholders including local businesses, schools, faith-based organizations, non-profits, pet and animal organizations, and individuals. The Fair was sponsored by the Fire Department but was developed and delivered by community volunteers, who created, designed, and marketed the event, as well as staffed the logistics that included volunteer management, facilities issues, and coordination of activity schedules. The Fair had high attendance for a first-time event of approximately 2000 community members. Areas for Improvement Recommendations for improvement included: Areas for Fair logistical and design improvements identified through post-event evaluation include signage, facility accessibility, music and acoustics, blood drive, event layout adjustments, minor first aid station, a lost and found and the timing of scheduled activities. Fair volunteers can continue to improve in their understanding of Incident Command System (ICS) roles, of the need for redundancy due to long volunteer shifts, and of inteam communications and information flow. Increased number of events and ways for community members to participate in their own preparedness should be offered. The success of the Fair in reaching the intended audience reinforces the effectiveness of events focused on more targeted groups. Photos: Mark Coplan Page 5
Narrative The City of Berkeley s Community Emergency Response Team aims to provide education in disaster preparedness and training in basic emergency skills. By preparing neighborhoods and community groups with basic emergency skills we can lessen the effect of a disaster and help sustain ourselves until assistance can arrive. The Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair focused on bringing community members together and to provide a family and kid-friendly environment where children and parents could spend time learning and taking preparedness actions together. Fair Objectives 1. Design and provide an environment that is enjoyable and interesting. 2. Support and enable taking preparedness actions on site at the event. 3. Promote learning and training. 4. Empower community members to take control of their readiness. A Family-Friendly Environment The theme of the Fair was strategically chosen with a focus on emergency preparedness for children and pets. In outreaching for disaster preparedness, it is often found that individuals will prepare for their children or their pets before they think about taking care of themselves. Children and pets can also be quite vulnerable members of our community in disaster. By focusing the Fair on children, pets and families, fair planners aimed to attract people beyond those who take CERT trainings and already have their own emergency preparedness plans Parents with children, especially young Photo: Mark Coplan children, typically have busy enough lives that emergency preparedness activities and actions don t make it up their priority list. To help address these priorities that can compete for time in a typical family, the Fair was designed to provide an environment that would be fun and interesting as a family activity while also providing many interactive learning opportunities around safety and emergencies. Partnering agencies including Berkeley Public Library, City of Berkeley Parks and Recreation, Berkeley Humane, Lawrence Hall of Science and other local businesses specifically offered child-focused activities to engage families. From survival skills and putting out small fires with fire Page 6
extinguishers to earthquake science and art coloring, children were engaged in safety-focused games, quizzes, and a multi-booth bingo game along with their parents. Take Action Now A common result found in emergency preparedness engagement is that planning ahead to take action often leads to indefinitely-postponed action. The design of the Fair sought to address this by providing a single place and time where dozens of safety skills and preparedness actions could be practiced. Fairgoers had the option to buy safety equipment like emergency kits, fire extinguishers, food stores and water storage containers. In addition, on-site training in disaster first aid, CPR, considerations for pet evacuation, school bus evacuation procedures and survival skills gave participants a chance to practice and see demonstrations of life-saving skills right at the Fair. Photos: Mark Coplan Page 7
Community Empowerment An over-arching theme of the Berkeley Emergency Preparedness Fair is community empowerment. At the Fair, an Inspiration Wall art-piece illustrated ordinary people doing extraordinary things and collected special abilities and safety actions to be contributed before, during and after disaster from fairgoers of all ages. There are many ways that community members can participate in improving their own disaster resilience. The purpose of the Fair was not only to engage the public by offering an event to attend but also to emphasize the importance Photo: Mark Coplan of community involvement in the process of planning, designing, and delivering the Fair. The primary success of the Fair was that it was accomplished through contributions from community volunteers, local businesses, and community organizations that all play a role in our community s resilience. Although the Berkeley Fire Department sponsored the event, it was the work of a dedicated planning team of over 15 volunteers, the hospitality of almost 150 total volunteers at the event itself, the participation of dozens of local organizations, and the generosity of donations from our local businesses that made the Fair important to our city s resilience. Their contributions helped hundreds of families, children, parents, pet owners, and individual community members take action to make themselves and their families more ready for emergencies. Photo: Vin Dunn Page 8
Overview Activity Name Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair (www.cityofberkeley.info/prepfair) Duration 4 hours Event Dates Sponsoring Agencies Berkeley Fire Department Berkeley Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Berkeley Parks Recreation and Waterfront Berkeley Public Health Division Berkeley Public Library Number of Participants Fair Goers: 2,000 Volunteers 149 City of Berkeley Staff: 7 Focus Preparedness 2 Fire Department 3 Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department 2 Public Works Department Type of Exercise Fair Page 9
Evaluation Event evaluation was collected through participant feedback forms, an online survey and email feedback. Participants identified strengths, areas for improvement and potential improvement actions. Planning team members conducted a two-hour debriefing meeting on April 30, 2014, as a selfevaluation and to prepare for next steps. Event Schedule The fair was a 4-hour event from 10am to 2pm on Saturday,. Activities were scheduled for the duration of the event on the Fair grounds as well as for specific times in the Presentation Area or Children s Area. The official Fair Program detailed the schedule of events. Download the Fair Program Demonstrated Strengths and Improvement Plan The 2014 Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair objectives were to design and deliver an engaging experience for families, children and pet-owners on the topic of emergency preparedness. Below are key strengths demonstrated in the delivery of the fair: Broad participation from community stakeholders provided a wide range of information and activities for fairgoers. Local businesses, schools, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, pet and animal organizations, and individuals were among the supporters, contributors, donors, and volunteers that joined together to create a successful event in the community. Donations from local businesses demonstrated their support and recognition of the importance of disaster resilience in our community. A fair was a format that readily invited and enabled participation in many ways. Berkeley CERT volunteers on the Fair Planning Team donated over 1000 combined hours to design and deliver the Fair. Planning team members also coordinated marketing for the event and staffed all Fair logistics including volunteer management, and facilities issues. During pre-event planning, work products were delivered by planning team members taking charge over specific components of the project. On Fair day, the Incident Command System was implemented with planning team members staffing section chief and group leader positions to ensure a seamless experience which many participants, both vendors/exhibitors and fairgoers described as a very well organized event. The success of the event demonstrates that when supported, the community has a strong capacity to contribute to its own preparedness. Despite a very popular date for competing events, approximately 2000 community members attended the Fair. In addition, for a first-time event, the level of attendance Page 10
was tremendous. Fair marketing efforts and the design of the event was targeted towards specific audiences and made the event attractive. Many vendors and exhibitors commented regarding the level of participation with descriptions including You would not know it was a first time event, we would not have had nearly as much success or traffic at the Solano Stroll (which has attendance over 100,000), and Fun, familyoriented, good community event. 100% of vendor and exhibitor survey respondents indicated they desired to be invited back to future events. In addition to the number of fairgoers, the degree of participation, although difficult to measure comprehensively, was noted to include participants remaining at the fair and taking part in activities throughout the venue for long periods of time, described by many fairgoers and fair staff observers as for hours. Fairgoers also commented in feedback forms that they found interest in so many of the activities, trainings and demonstrations at the Fair that they felt rushed or unable to stay long enough to complete all that they wanted. This was one illustration of the level of engagement for those in attendance. Areas of improvement identified include the following: The post-event debriefing for planning team members and the participant feedback surveys identified several areas for logistical and design improvements. These include event signage, acoustical challenges, low blood drive turnout, accessibility and accommodations for disable fairgoers, event layout adjustments, the need for a minor first aid station, a lost & found area and timing of scheduled activities. These details will require additional attention in planning for future events. Fair volunteers operated within the Incident Command System for this planned event. Understanding of ICS roles and team communication and information flow within ICS will remain an area for continuous improvement. Radio communications were exercised during the event in conduct of Fair operations. In addition, the need for redundancy in volunteer leadership roles was recognized as long shifts by individual volunteers stretched the team s ability to perform all roles effectively. The team will continue to implement ICS principles in future activities to continue increasing capacity in this area. The Fair s focus on specific audiences contributed to the success in marketing, attendance and duration of engagement. For future events, narrowing the focus towards target audiences with common goals and needs may help to attract and support those audiences in disaster preparedness. For example, the Fair attempted to integrate a Spanish language component of outreach. Although activities were Page 11
scheduled and moderately well attended for the Spanish language portions as well as volunteer interpreters being made available throughout the Fair, outreach was quite limited and attendance was low for monolingual Spanish speakers. Events specifically designed for target audiences could yield better outreach success as demonstrated by the fair s success in outreaching to families with children and pets. Conclusion Fair planners were committed to designing an environment that would allow families to bring members of all ages to learn, play, and get ready together. The focused marketing and outreach efforts brought the target audience of families with children and pets to the Fair, which far exceeded expectations for most fairs on the theme of safety, let alone a first-time event. Committed participation and support from stakeholders in the community yielded a gathering of diverse information and varieties of opportunities to take immediate preparedness actions and disaster training at the event. Community volunteers on the planning team, dedicating over 1000 hours of their time and expertise, set the tone that instilled a strong and palpable feeling of community member helping community member throughout the 4-hour fair. The implementation of the 2014 Berkeley Emergency Prep Fair created a multi-faceted opportunity to increase Berkeley s disaster preparedness. The success of the event again demonstrated the strong desire in the Berkeley community for support in taking on their own emergency readiness. Continuing to find more ways to attract individuals and families through specific approaches that appeal directly to their particular needs will yield more highly engaged and effective participants in our community s disaster preparedness. Page 12
Appendix A Event Statistics Summary Participation Estimated 2000 fairgoers in attendance. 149 Volunteers: 12 Command Staff 101 Operations and Logistics volunteers 24 Children musicians 12 Berkeley High School ROP Fire Science 7 City of Berkeley Staff 27 Community Organizations and Vendors Activities 80 CERT Bingo cards turned in x 4 actions minimum each card= 320 preparedness actions taken 150+ contributions by fairgoers to the Inspiration Wall community art piece 366 participants reported in for the school attendance contest 145 from Berkeley public schools 103 from Berkeley private schools 118 from other cities schools ~600 participants in fire extinguisher training 450 Jiffy Tags distributed facilitating emergency pet identification 25 trained in Spanish, Esté Preparado con la Cruz Roja 120+ trained in Disaster First Aid sessions 15 units blood donations with American Red Cross Page 13