Volunteers play a vital role in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from an emergency situation or natural disaster. Across the nation, most local emergency management departments such as KCDEM, are typically staffed with only a few people who provide day to day management, support, and training services.
However, during a disaster, the Director of KCDEM may find it necessary to activate specialized teams to handle a wide range of emergency events and situations. The type and number of teams and volunteers activated depends entirely on the circumstances.
A disaster may involve a 24-hour severe winter storm that causes power outages, landslides, flooding, and road closure. Other more serious events such as the Hurricane Katrina mobilization effort, involved dozens of teams and volunteers from throughout the County.
Volunteer Opportunities:
EOC Support: Severe emergency situations often require a team of people including volunteers trained in a wide range of skills. Administrative and Support volunteers typically provide office management and clerical services using computers, copiers, maintenance of data bases and processing paperwork.
Ham Radio Operators: Our amateur (ham) radio volunteersprovide tactical, logistical and administrative support and communications for all county government communications systems. This includes operations on equipment and frequencies of authorized equipment or frequencies in support of a need by government during a disaster. For more information contact Lester Crawford at [email protected].
Emergency Management Assistance Team: Individuals providing volunteer management functions are well trained in their area of expertise. This may include educators, engineers, technical and technology specialists, retired executives, business and civic leaders who have managed large groups of individuals.
Community Emergency Response Team - Citizens are educated in basic disaster preparedness and trained in skills such as fire safety, search and rescue and disaster medical operations. Team members will assist their neighbors after a disaster and may augment local first responders assisting when needed.
The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC): is designed to allow local volunteer medical and health professionals to contribute their skills and expertise throughout the year as well as during times of community need. Our Medical Reserve Corps unit can assist our community during emergencies, such as an influenza epidemic, a chemical spill or an act of terrorism.
Critical Incident Stress Management Team (CISM): The Kitsap County CISM Team is comprised of professional and volunteer responders from the emergency services, medical community, education and mental health experts, all of whom are specially trained in Critical Incident Stress Debriefings (CISD), which include aspects of acute trauma and disaster recovery, and the basic standards of peer support.
Search and Rescue: Kitsap County Search and Rescue Council consists of many Search and Rescue organizations that respond to emergencies in Kitsap County. These teams conduct search, rescue, recovery, and evacation of persons in distress. The teams are activated by KC DEM or the Sheriffs' department. All of the units welcome new members.
Public Information Officers:During a disaster, it is vital that information gets out to the public. This is done through our website, press releases, TV and radio interviews and printed materials. If you like to work under pressure and play a key role in working with the public, then this is an ideal position for you.
School Trainers (K-PREP): The K-PREP (Kitsap Practices Responsible Emergency Preparedness) program focuses on organizing and preparing our schools. A standardized plan has been initiated throughout Kitsap County's school districts, organizing them into response teams called "The Circle of Nine".
Functional and Assessment Service Teams (FAST): These FAST volunteers will provide assistance and support in shelters to help assess people with access and functional needs and assist them in getting what they need to stay in a shelter.
Severe Weather Shelter Volunteers (click here to learn more): Severe Weather Shelter volunteers manage the shelter locations whenever the program is activated. Shelter locations cannot open without enough volunteers on any given night.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please click on the application below. When completed, you may fax or mail the application to:
Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management
911 Carver Street, Bremerton, WA 98312
Fax: 360-478-9802
Attn: Michele Moen
