OXNARD : Volunteers Test Disaster Skills in Fake Quake

Armed with a household fire extinguisher and protected by a safety helmet and goggles, a focused Helen Moss readied herself to quash the flames that engulfed a mattress.

Nearby, Mike Dillon coordinated search-and-rescue efforts outside a damaged four-story brick tower where panicked calls for help came from inside.

Moss and Dillon worked Saturday amid a scene of faux destruction in Oxnard, complete with a triage site where the bloodied victims of a catastrophic earthquake were brought.

They are part of a 41-person volunteer contingent of Oxnard residents who graduated Saturday from the city’s new Community Emergency Response Team program. The disaster preparedness drills--held at the Oxnard fire station at 5th and K streets--concluded a seven-part training and instruction class.

Eventually, city officials hope to train about 300 residents to use basic safety, medical and rescue skills in their neighborhoods during a disaster, said program coordinator Tom Waller of the Oxnard Fire Department.

To recruit volunteers for the program, Waller attended several Neighborhood Watch Program councils to explain the need for disaster preparation.

Class members representing six Oxnard neighborhoods and one business group learned basic techniques for household-fire suppression, search and rescue, organizational skills and how to treat some injuries. The city provided funding to train the residents, Waller said.

“The volunteers are trained to deal with the three main killers in a disaster: bleeding, shock and obstructed airways,” Waller said. Other Ventura County cities with similar projects include Moorpark, Camarillo, Fillmore and the Hollywood-Silver Strand area of Channel Islands Beach, Waller said.

Before Saturday’s disaster simulation began, Dillon, 42, an Oxnard School District carpenter, said that he got interested in the team effort after the Northridge earthquake woke him up--in more ways than one.

“After it hit, everybody was standing the middle of the street holding flashlights,” he said. “We were at a total loss about what we should be doing.”

To put their skills and knowledge to the test, volunteers encountered burning wood pallets and mattresses and a large kettle of flammable liquid spewing flames and thick smoke. At the brick training tower, rescuers negotiated heavy wooden beams and other debris to remove trapped dummy victims. At the triage site, the volunteers practiced their bandaging and splinting skills. At each training site, Oxnard firefighters supervised and counseled the volunteers on what they did right or wrong.

After extinguishing that nasty mattress fire, Moss, 62, was congratulated by her peers.

“We have to be self-sufficient,” she said. “That’s the key.”