On Oct. 20, 2018 LAFD CERT served in multiple assignments for the annual Taste of Soul Family Festival, with attendance estimated over 350,000 people. It is held on Crenshaw Blvd. between Stocker St. and Rodeo Rd. For CERT, the call was at 0600 and went to 2100 hours. This was a HUGE event for CERT and the volunteers were extremely busy the entire day.

Chin Thammasaengsri, LAFD CERT South Bureau Coordinator, was the organizer for LAFD CERT and made the assignments of the 28 volunteers. Captain Cody Weireter, was commander of the LAFD CERT Unit and Captain I Rico Gross of EMS 18 in Battalion 18 served as the Medical Officer for this event. Captain Gross was the direct liaison for the LAFD with the festival organizers and all of the medical/EMS entities that were tied into this event including the private ambulance companies that were on scene.

Chin Thammasaengsri said, “The LAFD CERT Team was a HUGE part of the Public Safety Mix on this day (10/20/18). We were on duty for over 15 hours. 111 “patient contacts” were made, but the numbers are actually higher…quite higher if you count every emergency handled and our people were on the front lines of it all.”

CERT manned five First Aid stations, including assisting a Kaiser Main Medical tent, manned the dispatch radios at the Event Incident Command at LA City fire station 94, two mobile cart operations, plus several rovers on foot as well as relief staff. It was a crazy, wild, exhausting but entirely satisfying day.

A special thanks and acknowlegements to:

  • LAFD South Bureau who blessed the idea of adding us to this event because of the other events we worked here in South Bureau over the past couple of years.
  • Captain Rico Gross who, and this is key, MAKES SURE WE ARE ALSO A PART OF THE ACTUAL PLANNING PROCESS for this event.
  • Captain Rich Moody who ALSO champions us on these events and all others.
  • Captain Christopher Winn who went along with this INSANE idea when CERT Bureau Coordinator Chin Thammasaemgsri pitched it to him a couple of years back & then supported which Captain Weireter does now.
  • The Los Angeles Sentinel which is the lead organizer who ALSO has welcomed us to the table and values our participation.