Naperville Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) CERT is about readiness, people helping people, rescuer safety and doing the greatest good for the greatest number. CERT is a positive and realistic approach to emergency and disaster situations where citizens will be initially on their own and their actions can make a difference. Through training, citizens can manage utilities and put out small fires; treat the three killers by opening airways, controlling bleeding, and treating for shock; provide basic medical aid; search for and rescue victims safely and organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective.

2019 Annual Meeting Naperville CERT will be holding our 2019 annual meeting on Thursday April 25 from 7-9pm at the Electric Service Center (ESC) training room, 1392 Aurora Ave 2nd Floor. Guest speaker is Dan Nelson from the Naperville Office of Emergency Management. Send any queries to info@napercert.org.


Naperville's CERT Program Naperville adopted the CERT program in 2005 and began training its citizens in disaster relief. Classes are conducted by the city and additional classes are scheduled each year. The 20-hour classes cover disaster preparedness, fire safety, disaster medical operations, light search and rescue, CERT organization, disaster psychology and terrorism. Active members of the CERT Team are also given the opportunity to attend additional training to improve their emergency response skills.


Prior to 9/11 there were only about 175 CERT Teams nationwide. Since then this number has grown to over 2,000 and is expected to continue to grow. The teams are taking an “all-hazards approach, not limiting themselves to terrorism. This approach covers potential hazards related to weather events, transportation incidents, hazardous materials as well as terrorism.