MERRAG’s Volunteer Responders Get CERT-ified

Montecito has long recognized that being prepared for fires
or other disasters is the best way to bounce back from them. Its community
group MERRAG, pronounced “mirage” and an acronym for Montecito Emergency
Response & Recovery Action Group, holds prep trainings every month — and
has almost since its inception in 1987. This November, the group just certified
its first Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) class in a single 20-hour
course with the Montecito Fire Department.

MERRAG owes its founding to the late former Montecito fire
chief Herb McElwee. “Herb’s fire department then was even smaller than today’s,”
said Sue Ziliotto, who has been a member of MERRAG for years. “Maybe three
engines and one or two brush trucks,” she recalled. “About nine guys on duty at
a time.” She said McElwee decided he needed help from the community to be able
to respond to a major disaster. “He started the training classes,” Ziliotto
said, and through them, MERRAG members learned how to assist the fire
department effectively.

Today, MERRAG members open information centers during
emergencies so that the firefighters can do their jobs. “People would drive to
the fire stations for information when they couldn’t get through on the
telephone,” Ziliotto recalled. “The department was too busy to stop and talk,”
she said, so the MERRAG volunteers offer information, which helps the community
feel more at ease. Members have established a base radio system in a
communications van, and it also has people throughout Montecito who can report
in from their neighborhood during an emergency.