Ward Roles

Learn Your Neighborhood Roles
In Regard to Preparing For And Responding to Emergencies

Click On Your Role In Regard to Emergency Preparedness (As An Individual, or Member of Your Block and Neighborhood) Below:

The below information is in regard to your roles within the Neighborhood. For Area (Stake) leadership roles, please click here.

Individual or Family

Individuals and Families - Roles In Regard to Emergency Preparedness and Response

What You Should Be Doing Before An Emergency

What You Should Be Doing During An Emergency

Start asking yourself and your family the right questions - the questions that answer the big question, “Are You Prepared”?
Start making a family communications plan and evacuation plan and a disaster checklist.
Participate in the Orem Hillcrest Neighborhood emergency response plan, including:

Participate in your two times yearly Emergency Response Block socials/meetings.
Give a filled out survey - permission sheet to your Block Captain.
Know where your block staging area is. (You’ll learn this at your block socials/meetings).
Understand what should be done during an emergency (see section to the right)
Like and follow our Hillcrest Area Emergency Preparedness Facebook Page.
Register with the Orem City emergency alert system
If possible become CERT trained
If possible become Amateur Radio trained and capable.

Make a list of items that should be in one’s house or car or office (work location) in case of emergencies or disasters, based on the rule of threes, which is that you can live:

3 minutes without air or blood - you need first aid knowledge and supplies to stop bleeding and restart breathing
3 hours without shelter or warm clothing in cold weather - you need to have fuel, clothing, bedding.
3 days without water - you need at least 3 days of stored, sterile water (per person) and the ability to make foraged water safe once your stored water runs out
3 weeks without food - food will be a huge problem after 3 weeks
Take inventory of these items and acquire missing items.
Establish a replenshing cycle for perishable items.

Prepare your home to be more emergency “resistant” by:

Acquiring and maintaining working fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, etc. (Fire Safety)
Fastening high furniture to the wall so that it won't come loose during an earthquake; Strapping your water heater(s) to a stud; Securing your home walls to the home foundation (Earthquake Safety).
Preparing your home so that flood, rapid rising storm waters won't easily come into your home.

Acquire basic preparedness items of food, water, medicines, etc. for an emergency or calamity that might last several months.
Grow all the food you feasibly can on your own property.
Become physically conditioned - able to walk for miles and work hard physically.
Put preparedness deep into your brain by going over emergency scenarios and mentally preparing your response. Also, you should read books and guides on Emergency Preparation. There are considerable suggestions at our Resources Page.

------------ If inspired to do more, then consider-----------
Becoming a resource to your neighbors by:

Seeking learning from books and forums on getting prepared (and understanding the perplexities of nations that could trigger emergencies).
Sharing knowledge and skills you current have (or acquire) via:

Resource section of this website
Presenting at the bi-annual Country Fair or other emergency preparedness events
Praying and asking God what your role in the neighborhood preparation should be. He will guide you.”

Adding to your Emergency Preparedness goals the capabilities and skills that would allow you to not only survive, but thrive during a long-term, serious calamity. This goes beyond obtaining a few months of emergency stockpiles and CERT training. It requires long-term, life-sustaining capabilities including production of food (i.e. farming, ranching, fishing and water sources) as well as herbal medicine.
Educating yourself to become a resource in helping one's community to REBUILD after a serious calamity. This is a matter of acquiring knowledge that would have been common 150 years ago and also acquiring the technical knowledge that can take us from backwoods to modern again.
Remembering that helping your neighbors to prepare for tough times also benefits your own family because your family is more likely to survive during emergencies if many people in your neighborhood and community are prepared and work together for a common good - “The first law of life is not survival, it is that we are one.

Get more details at Family Emergency Preparedness Page.

Take care of your own self and family first. This includes:

Implementing your family plan for communication and evacuation (if needed).

If possible, send someone from the household to your block staging area to give a household report of we’re okay or we need help:

Sending someone to the Block Staging Area (the predesignated gathering area within the Block area) to report is onlyto be done if someone from that household is not needed at the household (for dealing with problems there). For example, a child could go to the Staging Area for the purpose of reporting the household status.
If someone in one’s household needs assistance, or a danger exists for which help is needed, a member of the household (when possible and prudent) should go to the block staging area to describe the help that is needed.
If no significant need exists at the household, then that person who is reporting could remain there to be assigned to help with other households (see the section 3).

Work together as requested by Block, Neighborhood, Area and City Emergency Response leaders:

if a household has determined that everyone and everything in its household is okay, then available individuals from that household should go to the Block Staging Area (the predesignated gathering area within the Block area) and make themselves available to help neighbors as assigned by the Block Captain (or acting Block Captain).
Please note that the first adult arriving at this staging area to help will become the Acting Block Captain, until the actual Block Captain arrives. (Which means that everyone in the Block should make themselves familiar with the roles of a Block Captain).
If needs exist in the Block that could use assistance from the larger Neighborhood resources, a runner should be sent (or Amateur Radio communication established) to the Neighborhood Command Post to describe the need.
If it is determined that no needs exist in the Block, then individuals and families that have reported to the Block Staging Area should go to the Neighborhood Command Post to be assigned how and where to assist others within the larger Neighborhood.

Block Captain

Block Captains - Roles In Regard to Emergency Preparedness and Response

What You Should Be Doing Before An Emergency

Understand Your Role:

Start by downloading and reviewing the “Block Captains - You Are Important” instruction sheet. That sheet contains the guidelines for the Block Captain responsibilities.

Additional learning resources are available in the Orem City Block Training Packet (you can ignore the references to color signal cards in th is training packets, as we no longer display signal cards for help, but, instead send someone to the Block Staging area with the request for h elp).

Become Smarter In Regard To Your Role:

In summary form, as a Block Captain or Assistant Block Captain:

You will meet once or twice per year with your Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Coordinator so as to be aware of any changes in city, stake or neighborhood emergency plans, policies and activities.
If at all possible, you should consider becoming CERT trained.

Maintain a supply of all needed forms (Signal Card Reports, Damage Assessment Reports, etc.).

Invite Your Block Members To Join Together in Preparing As A Group:

Your tasks in terms of inviting households to join together include:

Ensure that your block has at two block socials each year in order for block members to be familiar and friendly with each other and to keep them up to date on emergency response plans and and to motivate and help each family to prepare.
Make sure that you know when someone moves into your block. Then, go and welcome them and introduce them in on the neighborhood (block) program.

Make sure each household in your block receives the instrucion sheet, “You Are Part of an Emergency Block” and knows where the block staging area.
Have block households fill out and/or update their household survey data as information changes.

Keep a file or notebook of block member contact information so that you can make contact quickly with all block members.
Encourage block members to fill out their personal family preparedness plan, including how their family will communicate during an emergency and connect afterwards if they have been separated.
Encourage as many block residents as possible to take Red Cross, and/or CERT training and to become Amateur Radio Trained.
Encourage block members to create prepare individually and as av household by getting prepared for fires, earthquakes, andb floods and to begin or continue acuquiring food storage.
Teac h block members about block captain duties during an emergency in case they are the first adult to arrive at the staging area in an emergency and thus become the acting block captain.

What You Should Be Doing During An Emergency

The Block Captain (or acting Block Captain) should do the following as quickly as possible immediately following a significant emergency:

Take care of your own family's needs first.
If one's family is okay and it is safe to leave, then go to the Block Command Center or Staging Area (this is the predesignated location within each Block area for people to go to after an emergency coordinate rescue operations and/or to request help for their household).

Take with you a note pad, a fastener for leaving notes at the ore-designated communication “post” at the staging area., and a pen or pencil in hand.
The first adult to arrive at the Block Command Center, or Staging Area, is the Acting Block Captain, until relinquishing that role to another.
If you are first to arrive, write a note and leave the note at the Staging Area Communication Post stating that you are acting as the Block Captain.
If you are going to leave the Staging Area (which you may need to do in order to check on the status of those in the neighborhood):

Leave a visible note explaining to where you are going and why (i.e. “I have gone to walk through the Block and check on each household.”)

Ether personally walk through the Block in order to determine the preliminary block status, or else send someone else to do this and note the status of the homes (damage or no damage) in the Block.
Send the Preliminary Block Status Report to the Neighborhood Command Center

via a runner or other means of communication that allows the Block Captain to remain in his/her block).
Only if no runner or other communication means is available, would the Block Captain personally take the Preliminary Block Status report to the Neighborhood Command Center.

Remain at or quickly return to Block Staging Area and update the note explaining that you have completed the Preliminary Block Status report.
Begin to detailedly check on families and coordinate help activity within the Block (always utilizing other Block Members or CERT members, sending them in pairs if possible). The first things to do is to go back to each home with damage:

Always, leave a note when leaving the Staging Area.
Assign CERT members or other uninjured persons that are able, to help as needed.
(If feasible) stay at the Command Post to coordinate help activities. Otherwise when leaving the Staging Area, leave a note so others will know where you are. If no one has come that can be assigned (and with a partner if possible).
Communicate follow-up status and needs for help to the Neighborhood Command Center through runner or electronic communication as follows:

A Block Damage Assessment report for each family residence within the Block (sent by runner)
Requests for Resources (sent by runner)

Once instructed by the Neighborhood Captain or once no needs exist within the Block, and the Block Damage report has been communicated to the Neighborhood Command Center, then and only then the Block Captain may report to the Neighborhood Command Center to be assigned to help elsewhere.
The Block Captain should leave a note at the Block Command Center or Staging Area explaining that all needs have been taken care of and where he or she has gone.

Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Coordinator

What You Should Be Doing Before An Emergency

The three responsibilities of the Neighborhood (Ward) Emergency Preparedness Coordinator are to teach, organize and encourage:

Individuals and families to prepare for emergencies at the individual/family level.
Individuals and families to adopt a group think, within the Neighborhood and Blocks as regards emergency preparedness and response.
Ward Council members to fulfill their roles before and during emergencies.

Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Coordinators should seek to accomplish all of the following:

Organize and facilitate active, functioning Emergency Preparedness Blocks within the Neighborhood by doing the following:

Create (map out) appropriately sized Blocks (6 to 12 households per Block).
Try to personally visit with all heads of household in your Neighborhood boundaries, at least every few years. Ask if they have an interest in becoming CERT or Amateur Radio Trained or being a Block captain. Keep records of your visits.
Identify and call Block captains. Keep in mind that Block captains should be men or women of outstanding character who have an interest in their neighbors and who would like to be involved in the Block program. No one should be arm-twisted into accepting this responsibility. It is not necessary that Block Captains be members of the LDS faith.
You should teach the Block captains to do the following:

Hold a minimum of 2 Block socials per year.
Establish a Block staging area within the Block and teach Block members to come to the Staging Area in the event of emergency (and for drills).
Create a family feeling among Block members so that members plan to take care of each other.
Help Block members encourage and teach each other emergency preparedness skills and practices.

Talk frequently with your Block Leaders. Have them report to you on the Block meetings held in their individual Blocks and how they are fulfilling their Block Leader role. You cannot expect what you do not “inspect”. Return and report is critical. In your turn, you report to the Area the level of participation of the Blocks.

So, establish Reporting Routines:

You need to visit personally or visit over the phone (don’t rely on email) with your Block Leaders at least twice per year (that’s how often each Block needs to be having and reporting its Block meetings to you).
You need to teach Block Leaders their duties. The information that Block Leaders need to know is available for both you and them to study at this page under Roles of Block Leaders.

You need to have Ward Leaders, Block Captains and Block members inform you of all new move-ins to the Neighborhood so that you can ensure that the family or individual gets a Block emergency response packet from you or from the Block Captain.

Chair Regular Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Coordinating Council Meetings (once or twice per year). All are invited, but those who absolutely should attend are bolded:

You, the, Ward(Neighborhood) Emergency PreparednessCoordinator and your Assistants
Block Captains
Relief Society President
Young Women’s President
Primary President
Elders Quorum President
High Priest Group Leader
Ward Mission Leader
1st Councilor in the Bishopric
2nd Councilor in the Bishopric

Encourage Web Site Familiarity and Use:

Teach everyone in your Neighborhood to utilize the HillcrestReady.org website.
Teach everyone in your Neighborhood to like and follow our page (Facebook.com/HillcrestReady).
Establish a Facebook page for your neighborhood and encourage all neighborhood members to participate.

Yearly and Bi-Yearly Events Meetings:

Yearly events:

Utah State and Orem, City drills (April and September of each year)
Neigborhood firesides (one per year)

Bi-yearly events:

Hillcrest Area Emergency Preparedness Fair (odd years)
Ward Council Training (even years)
5th Sunday, 3rd Hour Presentation to Adults (odd years)

Monthly Hillcrest Stake Council Preparedness Meeting:

You should attend the Area (Stake) Emergency Preparedness Council Meeting on the 3rd Sunday of each month at 4:30 PM in the Orem Hillcrest Stake Center High Council Room. This meeting normally lasts an hour to an hour and a half. Attendees include:

Stake Presidency 1st Counselor
Stake High Council Advisor for Emergency Preparedness
Stale Emergency Preparedness Cooridnators
Stake Emergency Communications Coordinator
Stake CERT Coordinator
All Ward Emergency Preparedness Coordinators in the Stake

Setting an Example and Being Proactive:

We encourage Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Coordinators to be an example of participating in the Block meetings and preparing for emergencies. We hope that you will contribute your ideas and experiences at the monthly Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Council meetings and that you will be proactive and innovative in helping involve your Block Leaders and Neighborhood members in having an emergency preparation mindset. We suggest that if you have opportunity that you attend other emergency training seminars and exhibits on Emergency Preparedness, and becoming CERT and Red Cross First Aid trained and AmateurRadio certified. We highly recommend that you read books and articles on Emergency Preparedness.

Journal:

We recommend you keep a journal of your activities in fulfilling your calling, so you’ll know who you’ve talked to and what you have learned about your Neighborhood members’ level of preparation. The palest ink is better than the best memory.

What You Should Be Doing During An Emergency

The Ward Emergency Coordinator should do the following as quickly as possible immediately following a widespread emergency:

Take care of your own family's needs first.
Report to Neighborhood Captain. With him, determine where your help is best needed.
Make sure check in desks are filled and functioning.
Coordinate volunteer check in and help assign them where needed.
Help the CERT team if needed.

Neighborhood Captain (Bishop / HP Group Leader)

Logistics Coordinators (1st Counselor / YM President)

Search and Rescue Coordinator (2nd Counselor / EQ Pres)
Documentation Clerk (Ward Clerk)

Relief Coordinator (Relief Society President)

Assistant Relief Coordinator (Young Women's President)
Assistant Relief Coordinator (Primary President)
High Priest Group Leader
Assistant Search & Rescue Coordinator (Young Mens Pr.)
Assistant Logistics Coordinator (Young Mens President)

Emergency Plan

The Orem Hillcrest Neighborhood Emergency Plan document was created under the leadership of President Olsen and Stake Emergency Preparedness Leader, Beverley Waldon.

This multi-page document in Microsoft Word format outlines our individual and collective responsibilities both before, during and after emergencies.

Family Signal Kit

Survey Permissioin

Block Signal Cart Report

Block Signal Summary Report

Block Damage Assessment Report

Communications Center

Orem City Drill

CERT - Saves Lives

it is very desirable to have as many people as possible be CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) trained. Skills learned through this training program will help Orem residents know how to to avoid becoming a victim and how to save as many lives as possible through a safety first attitude, CERT 60 second triage and through understanding how to render life saving medical aid.

CERT members are trained and organized through the Orem City staff and leadership, but function primarily within Blocks, Neighborhoods and Areas.

CERT trained persons are requested to respond to emergencies first in their own Blocks (going as soon as possible to their Block staging area). Once no needs for CERT members exist in the Block, they report to the Neighborhood Command Post (Ward Building) and function under the leadership of the Neighborhood Leader (Bishop). When no needs exist within the Neighborhood they then can then report to the Area Command Center (Stake Offices) and function at the direction of the Area Leader (Stake President). Once no needs within the Area exist, then and only then are they free to report to the City Emergency Operations Center.

CERT training is different than Red Cross training because it is focused on maximum saving of lives with a large number of casualties and no opportunity for professional responders to eventually arrive on the scene. This is a huge difference, because Red Cross training is focused on saving a single person in a situation where professional responders will be arriving within a matter of minutes or at most an hour).

Please consider becoming CERT trained. The training is invaluable

Documents, Forms and Reports

Click on Your Role (Below To Review Your Responsibilities During An Emergency

Find your role below and mentally practice doing it. Neighborhood (Ward) roles shown below. For Area (Stake) roles click here.

Individual or Family

Block Leader

The Block Captain (or acting Block Captain) should do the following as quickly as possible immediately following a widespread emergency:

Take care of your own family's needs first.
Display the appropriate family signal at your residence.
Go to the Block Command Center or Staging Area (this is the predesignated location within each Block area for people to go to after an emergency in order to coordinate and receive initial medical treatment). Take with you a blank color card report and a note pad, a fastener for leaving notes on a tree, etc., and a pen or pencil in hand.

The first adult to arrive at the Block Command Center, or Staging Area, is the Acting Block Captain, until relinquishing that role to another.
If you are first to arrive, write a note and leave the note in the Staging Area stating that you are acting as the Block Captain.
If you are going to leave the Staging Area (which you will obviously need to in order to check on the status of those in the neighborhood):

Leave a visible note explaining to where you are going and why (i.e. gone to walk through the Block, and make a preliminary color card report, etc.)

Walk through the Block and note the status of the homes in the Block on the Signal Card Report (aka Preliminary Block Status) and send this report to the Neighborhood Command Center

via a runner or other means of communication that allows the Block Captain to remain in his/her block).
Only if no runner or other communication means is available, would the Block Captain personally take the Preliminary Block Status (aka Color Card Report) to the Neighborhood Command Center.

Go back to Block Command Center or Staging Area and update the note explaining that you have completed the Signal Card Report
Begin to really check on families and coordinate help activity within the Block (utilizing other Block Members or CERT members if possible). The first things to do is to go back to each home with a red card (and later those with yellow cards) and provide help

Again, leave a note when leaving the Staging Area.
Assign CERT members or other uninjured persons that are able to help, to help as needed. (If feasible) stay at the Command Post to coordinate help activities. Otherwise when leaving the Staging Area, leave a note so others will know where you are. If no one has come that can be assigned (and with a partner if possible), begin a thorough check of neighborhood residents and building safety within the block, going first to residences where Red Signals are displayed and then to homes with No Signal, and finally to homes where Yellow Signals are displayed.
Again, please note WHY it is so important for families to display signal cards — since we are going to have to check homes with no cards before we begin checking homes with yellow cards. Skipping homes with green signal cards, means help can go more quickly to those with significant needs.
Communicate follow-up status and needs for help to the Neighborhood Command Center through runner or electronic communication as follows:

A Block Damage Assessment report for each family residence within the Block (sent by runner)
Requests for Resources (sent by runner)

Once instructed by the Neighborhood Captain or once no needs exist within the Block, and the Block Damage report has been communicated to the Neighborhood Command Center, then and only then the Block Captain may report to the Neighborhood Command Center to be assigned to help elsewhere.
The Block Captain should leave a note at the Block Command Center or Staging Area explaining that all needs have been taken care of and where he or she has gone.

Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Leader

Neighborhood Captain (Bishop)

The Bishop or District Captain (or the acting District Captain) should do the following as quickly as possible following a widespread emergency:

Take care of his own family's needs first.
Display the appropriate signal card at his residence.
Go to the Ward office at the Ward church building
Receive signal card reports sent by runner or communicated electronically from the various blocks
Communicate a block signal card status report as soon as possible to the Neighborhood Communications Center or send this report by runner.
Continuously allocate resources to those within the District as needed.
Coordinate rescue efforts with CERT volunteers (that have reported to the District Command Center for assignment to help meet the needs in the district). CERT volunteers will work first within the block in which they reside.
Receive additional updates on people and property.
Receive block damage reports.
Summarize and report district damage assessments to Neighborhood Captain.
Coordinate assignments of the Ward Council to meet the needs of district residents.
Oversee relocation of households, or for general evacuation, coordinate with Neighborhood Communications Center and record who, where and with whom relocations occur.
As reports come in from the various Block Captains, information must be compiled and reported to the Neighborhood Captain (through the Neighborhood Communications Center). From these reports resources can be dispatched to the blocks within districts. This should all be coordinated with the Neighborhood Communications Center.
Keep in mind that CERT team members in the District will be available at the District Command Center (Ward Building) which will be the staging area for CERT deployment within the district where needed. CERT team members will be utilized within the District until the District Captain determines that they are not needed.

Logistics Coordinator (1st Counselor)

Search and Rescue Coordinator (2nd Counselor)

Documentation Clerk (Ward Clerk)

Relief Coordinator (Relief Society President)
Assistant Relief Coordinator (Young Women President)
Assistant Relief Coordinator (Primary President)
High Priest Group Leader
Assistant Search & Rescue Coordinator (Elders Quorum Pr.)
Assistant Logistics Coordinator (Young Mens President)

Learn Your Neighborhood RolesIn Regard to Preparing For And Responding to Emergencies

CERT - Saves Lives

Click on Your Role (Below To Review Your Responsibilities During An Emergency

Learn Your Neighborhood Roles
In Regard to Preparing For And Responding to Emergencies