Earthquake Disaster Exercise!

Every year we help out the local fire department by supporting the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) disaster simulation training exercise at the Fairfax Fire Academy. Here, the exercise simulated a 6.7 Richter Earthquake which "severely injured" Camilla, our au pair Sarah, and Paul. These photos capture those rare moments when we were able to feign seriousness. When the student responder first approached Sarah and asked, "Ma'am are you OK?" she immediately broke out into a smile, prompting the initial assessment, "well at least she's smiling!"

We picked what we thought was the perfect spot: under a shady tree to escape the heat, great view over the disaster area so we could see how everything was going, and close to the responders ensuring a speedy rescue for our critical injuries. Unfortuantely, even though we were directly in the line-of-sight for the command center and only 40 feet away, the responders never evacuated us. After about 45 minutes, the instructors strolled by and declared us "dead" and sent us to the morgue. Yikes!


Paul became a certified CERT responder in 2006 and now supports the program through a special project using Google Earth for targetted CERT volunteer recruitment analysis.