The room was packed for the first meeting of the new Community Emergency Response Team in Greenbrier.
Greenbrier Fire Chief Cody Fulmer said 41 enthusiastic people showed up to volunteer, exceeding his expectations.
“I was thrilled and comforted, too, knowing that our community is stepping up,” he said. “That proved right there that we were doing the right thing.”
In June, the Greenbrier City Council gave its blessing for the Greenbrier Fire Department to recruit volunteers for the team.
Joyce Johnson, the Greenbrier City Council member who suggested the idea to Fulmer, was at the organizational meeting and is on the team.
“We had an excellent turnout. It was standing-room only. I think almost everyone there signed up for a class, signed up to be a member of the team, filled out applications,” Johnson said.
Members of the emergency-response team have to undergo training. Johnson has already been certified, along with Annette Gartman of Greenbrier, a nurse educator whom Fulmer appointed to lead the team.
Fulmer said two training classes will be held. The first will be from 6-8 p.m. Aug. 3 in the Greenbrier City Hall Courtroom. The class will be led by a representative of the Faulkner County Office of Emergency Management.
The chief said the first topic will be Greenbrier’s emergency-response plan.
Volunteers are still welcome, Fulmer said.
“If they didn’t make the first meeting, it’s not too late to be part of our team. If they’re still interested, they can come,” he said.
Johnson said she underwent disaster-response training to be prepared in case a tornado hit the city. Then extreme flooding in April caused the evacuation of a facility in which her father lives in Greenbrier.
She and Fulmer talked again and got the project moving.
Johnson said some logistics have to be worked out before the Aug. 3 meeting, including how team members will be notified during a disaster.
Fulmer said 23 “jump bags” of supplies for first-responders are ready.
“We’re going to have to double that,” he said.
The bags include basic first-aid supplies, helmets and masks. Wrenches are still needed for the volunteers to use to turn off gas and utilities to minimize the risk of fire during an emergency or disaster.
Although the original plan was for each team member to take a bag home, the large turnout changed that plan.
“We’re going to leave those bags to where when we activate their team, they’ll pick them up. We’ll have them just grab it and go until we can upgrade them for everyone to have their own,” he said.
He said the supplies are being paid for with donations — $1,600 to date — and some Greenbrier Fire Department funds.
Fulmer said volunteers who came to the first meeting are residents of Greenbrier, as well as Springhill, Wooster, Guy, Centerville and Twin Groves.
“I told them that in the future, we may divide our team up,” he said, to represent the different areas.
“There have been very few meetings that I’ve been involved in that we’ve had 100 percent active participants. They were raising their hands with ideas about how they want to make the team great,” Fulmer said.
“I truly believe if we’d had something that night, we would have had 41 people to help.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.