• Citizen Corps is part of the federal Freedom Corps program created by President George W. Bush and unveiled in his 2002 State of the Union Address.

   

• The mission of Citizen Corps is to harness the power of every individual through education, training, and volunteer service in order to make communities safer, stronger, and better prepared to respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, public health issues, and disasters of all kinds.

   

• The Tulsa Mayor's Citizen Corps was established in 2002, and was one of the first 50 communities in the nation to set up a local Citizen Corps Council.

How is Tulsa's Citizen Corps organized? What other agencies and organizations are involved?

• The Mayor's Citizen Corps is overseen locally by the Citizen Corps Council under the leadership of Mayor Bill LaFortune. The project is funded through a federal grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

   

• Tulsa Project Impact, a public-private partnership created in 1998 to promote disaster mitigation and preparedness, has been designated by the Mayor's Office to serve as the local Citizen Corps Council. The partnership includes over 400 businesses, public and non-profit entities, and individuals.

   

• Public Sector Partners involved in implementing our projects include entities such as City of Tulsa Public Works, Indian Nations Council of Governments, Mayor's Office for Neighborhoods, Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency, Tulsa City-County Health Department, Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, Tulsa Fire Department, and Tulsa Police Department.

   

• Non-profit agencies involved in implementing our projects include the American Red Cross Tulsa Area Chapter, Citizens' Crime Commission, Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa, RSVP of Tulsa, Tulsa Partners, Inc. and Tulsa Volunteer Center.

What programs are part of the Mayor's Citizen Corps?

The seven Mayor's Citizen Corps programs are:

• Alert Neighbors Program. Administered by the Citizens' Crime Commission, this program addresses crime and terrorism prevention issues such as home and personal safety, auto theft, gang awareness, home security and neighborhood watch.

   

• Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). CERT teams take action to help others until professionals (police/fire/medical) arrive. Volunteers are mobilized to check their own neighborhoods and businesses to help assess damage and administer first aid to injured neighbors.

   

• Language/Culture Bank. Volunteers with foreign language skills or multicultural experience may choose to be available on an "on-call" basis to assist community agencies with public health and safety issues.

   

• Medical Reserve Corps. The Medical Reserve Corps mobilizes, trains and manages volunteers to help the medical and health communities during emergencies and to provide year-round public education services. Retired doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians are needed as MRC volunteers.

   

• Safe and Secure Teams. To avert, minimize or respond to disaster, teams of volunteers facilitate, educate and train neighborhoods, businesses and nonprofit agencies as part of the city-wide volunteer mobilization strategy.

   

• Tulsa Human Response Coalition. Those with professional skills in the fields of public health, public safety, mental health, emergency response and disaster mitigation may make those skills available to first responders by being "on-call" to assist when needed at the site of an emergency.

   

• Volunteers in Police Service (VIPS). VIPS assist the Tulsa Police Department by performing administrative duties that were previously done by uniformed officers, allowing those officers to be put back in uniform field assignments.

How is the Mayor's Citizen Corps helping to address Tulsa's homeland security needs?

• Citizen involvement in homeland security has been broadly defined at the national level to include public health, public safety, and disaster preparedness. This includes preparing for events such as epidemics, criminal activity, and tornadic/flooding events. The reason for this wide-ranging scope on homeland security is that many of the strategies you would use for preparing for one event would apply to others, including terrorist activities.

   

• Another component of our citizen involvement model for homeland security is building community. A core value for the local Citizen Corps program is that the best homeland security, the best homeland defense when discussing citizen involvement, is a strongly interconnected community. When neighbors watch out for neighbors, and businesses and neighborhoods are working together throughout the city, our community will be better able to withstand the crises when they come, whether they be natural disasters, criminal activity, or terrorist events.

Briefly, what can the average citizen do to be prepared for a disaster, either natural or manmade?

• Get A Plan: Develop a plan for how to get out of your home, your business and if necessary your neighborhood, as well as how to shelter in place. Develop a communications plan for your family members in the event of a disaster and an out of state contact for people to call in case of a large scale disaster in your area.

   

• Get A Kit: Develop a 72-hour or three-day kit for your home, with the food, water and supplies you would need to survive for three days if needed. Also develop a to-go kit for your car.

   

• Get Involved: The best homeland security is a strongly interconnected community. Become a Citizen Corps volunteer and make Tulsa a safer and better place to live.

What are some resources citizens can look to for guidance in getting their families prepared for a disaster?

• The Mayor's Citizen Corps has a Family Preparedness Guide we can provide. Go to www.tulsapartners.org to download this document.

• There are local, regional and national web sites with useful information in the Featured Web Sites and Information Resources sections of the "Prepared Community" list.

• In addition to the site map, this web site contains a collection of helpful guides in the Resources selection of the "Communications Center" section. Data mining tools are under development and will be released in 2005.

How does Tulsa prepare for disasters?

• Mike McCool is the director of the Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency, a combined city/county entity. He and his deputy director, Roger Jolliff have written an Emergency Operations Plan for the County that covers the various hazards this area faces. He updates this plan on a regular basis. If a disaster occurs, he activates the Emergency Operations Center, and the community leaders (Mayor, Fire Chief, Police Chief, Sheriff, Public Works Director, Health Department Director, EMSA, and others, depending on what kind of disaster it is), operate the incident from that location, in addition to whatever Incident Command Post may be set up out in the field, in close proximity to the incident.

• In addition, each department/agency has their own emergency plan that works in conjuction with the county plan. The various departments and agencies in the county work very closely together, meeting regularly. We also exercise our responses to various disaster scenarios on a very frequent basis. In mid-December, about 80 members of our local response community met for a tabletop exercise to discuss our response to a terrorist event. In June of 2005, the state worked with our community to exercise our response to a biological event in a full-scale exercise. There were also several smaller exercises throughout the year. We often include private businesses in our exercises, if the scenario shows they will have an important role to play. We exercise our responses to both natural and man-made disasters.

• The important thing is that we have a plan, we exercise our plan, and we are in constant communication with one another. One of our firefighters once said, "A disaster is not the time to be exchanging business cards." In Tulsa, our responders all know one another, and we know our roles and responsibilities. We operate an event using the National Incident Management System, so that we know how to organize an incident and so that we know who is in charge of what. Some of these concepts are somewhat fluid, which is why constant communication is so important. We also study disasters in other communities--what worked, what didn't. This way we can try to avoid common pitfalls in response.

• If you are interested in becoming involved in Tulsa's response, see below.

How can someone volunteer to get involved with the Mayor's Citizen Corps?

• Call 596-B-RDY (2739) or e-mail citizencorps@cityoftulsa.org