Savannah teens complete emergency response simulation

On Tuesday evening, a handful of Savannah teenagers bent over bloody bodies to put a month’s worth of critical first-aid and disaster training to the test.

The volunteers from Savannah Youth City hurried through the gravel paths and grassy fields at the Chatham County Sheriff’s Complex, working to stabilize a fallen door, deciding on medical interventions to help burn and gunshot victims and people trapped under heavy objects.

Those needing help during the simulation were actors, but the intense atmosphere of the training scenarios helped 14-year-old Monay Polite, from westside Savannah, feel confident that she would have the skills to help her family and neighbors through dangerous situations like a shooting or natural disaster. 

“There’s been a lot of stuff going around in our community and I just wanna step in and help out, and show people that I’m not just a teenager who just sits in the house and does nothing,” Polite said.

The Jenkins High School student was one of several Youth City members to finish the month-long Community Emergency Response Team training developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and taught by county leaders. 

The training is part of summer programming provided by Savannah Youth City, a nonprofit started in 1999 to help teens from underserved city neighborhoods become more engaged in their communities. 

The goal is to have a teen brigade of community helpers who can teach the skills to others in their neighborhood and provide information on hurricane preparation across Savannah, said Beverlee Trotter, the founder and director of the organization.

Trotter, who grew up predominately in Westside, said the mission of her group is to help young adults and families like those she grew up with who she called “unintended victims of crime.” 

“When I grew up, nobody knocked on my door and said ‘There’s a program down the street, you wanna get involved?’ I never attended the Boys and Girls Club, the community center, or anything like that until I was an adult. Which is such a sad case because there’s probably so many other young people who could benefit from some of the things that we have here in Savannah, and they just don’t get the opportunity,” she said. “My goal at that young age was to just give people what I didn’t really have.”

Trotter said that while natural disasters may not happen every day, emergencies like storms, floods, or gun violence are a more common reality for the teens across the city who volunteer with her.

Young people learning basic emergency response skills like triaging and CPR can be life-saving in communities where adults may not be present or have the same knowledge, she said.

“If a storm comes today or tomorrow, wherever these kids are in Savannah they’re going to have skills to be able to go knock on a neighbor’s door and say ‘Do you need anything? Can I help you?’ They’re gonna be able to make sure everybody on their block and their neighborhood is okay.”

Jaeda Scott, a 10th grader who also attends Jenkins High, has been a part of Youth City for several years and finally had the opportunity this summer to complete CERT training. 

Scott was motivated to help her community understand how to prepare for a disaster and wants to make Savannah a “better place” through her service. 

“There’s a lot of stuff that happens and some people don’t know what they’re doing, but at least you can help a little bit until the ambulance gets there and you know certain things,” Scott said. “I think it’s a good thing to teach young people like us.”

Hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 each year, with storm activity peaking between August and September. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has already predicted that this year’s season will be “above-normal,” in part due to increased ocean temperatures. Out of the 13 to 19 forecasted storms, at least 3 are expected to be major hurricanes. 

Agencies like NOAA and the National Weather Service have faced significant cuts to staffing and proposed budget cuts by the Trump administration. Paired with the president’s expressed plans to phase out FEMA at the end of the season, there is increasing concern that critical information about severe weather events may be delayed to the cities that need it.

George Freeman, Savannah Youth City’s CERT manager, said these changes make it even more important for more members of the community, including young people, to become trained in emergency response.

“It’s not about if it happens, it’s about when it happens. In emergency management they say the first 72 hours is yours. You are on your own the first 72 hours. This is no matter where you are because FEMA doesn’t just show up, they have to be activated by the president and they’re only activated by the president once the governor declares a state of emergency,” he said. “And the fact is that resources are being cobbled due to the administration’s idea of the need for FEMA, and that will have an effect on us like it had an effect on the community in Kerr County.”’

Freeman said he hopes to launch a county-wide CERT program soon that gets even more people involved in the program and continues to help youth in the area develop valuable skills that they will need for life.

“If you teach enough kids to do this, when they become adults you have enough adults that know what to do. They’re involved in learning these things because it may be them that have to respond to something like that, because there may be others in the community that don’t know,” Freeman said. “They may be babysitting and something happens, or maybe they’re just a little older than they are now. Having that knowledge base at an early age and being proficient in it, learning other skills like being confident, learning to be a leader, these are important things that children have to learn now because it’s harder to learn later on in life.”

Trotter added that giving teens positive ways to improve their community is the best way to combat the negative influences around them. 

“These kids come from the neighborhoods and communities that are vulnerable and need that extra support, so it behooves us. I think CERT is needed because a lot of times we talk about what kids are not doing, what they are doing, and what they should be doing, but we gotta give them something to be proud of,” she said. “They shouldn’t be walking around the city thinking that because of some other kid or something else that happened that they’re all in the same bucket.”