Cupertino's Office of Emergency Services recently received a $150,000 grant from the Office of the Surgeon General to establish a local Medical Reserve Corps, a troupe of volunteers trained to respond to large-scale emergencies and supplement contingency plans already in place.

Despite an increasing number of people graduating from Cupertino's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Marsha Hovey says she felt more was needed. "We don't have a hospital nearby. We have one clinic with one doctor, and we anticipate that facility would be overwhelmed in the event of an emergency," she says. "The community might have to take care of itself."

The grant covers a number of areas, but the most vital is training. Hovey hopes to recruit 10 CERT graduates to serve in the pilot program, which would require a 53-hour class for participants to achieve the rank of Red Cross First Responder, and an additional 16 hours of training with the Santa Clara County Fire Department for first aid and CPR training. "It's a fairly decent volunteer commitment," Hovey says, "but after the first year, those 10 that we train will become supervisors."

The grant also covers supplies such as CPR mannequins and automated external defibrillators, such as the one that will be placed at Quinlan Community Center. "We crafted the grant to get the supplies right away," Hovey says. Cupertino hasn't gotten the grant money yet, but ordering those supplies and recruiting volunteers for training are first on the city's to-do list.

The Medical Reserve Corps is a program that started up in the wake of the 9-11 attacks because of the waves of volunteers who came forward to help. In two years of existence, the Medical Reserve Corps has only granted money to two nearby cities, Palo Alto and Morgan Hill, to begin their own groups.

Officially, the program involves medical professionals, but Hovey had to find other alternatives. "It's difficult to find doctors and nurses who don't have other responsibilities," she says. "In the event of an emergency, most living nearby would respond to local hospitals." She considered retired medical professionals, but their relatively low numbers in Cupertino didn't support that proposition. "We decided to step it down to the first-aid level," she says.

The success of CERT in Cupertino gives Hovey hope that she can quickly find willing participants. "We have so many people willing to volunteer," she says. Hovey hopes to get people trained and run through two small-scale drills by year's end, carving the way for the development of the true Medical Reserve Corps next year.

These details had to be ironed out for the grant application, which took Hovey and her one-person staff about a month to complete. "They wanted a really detailed plan on our vision, so we had to sit down and think about what we wanted to do," Hovey says. She chooses to approach her job with cautious optimism, anticipating a Murphy's Law scenario where the less prepared Cupertino is, the more likely an earthquake or similar disaster will hit. "We're still preparing, hoping nothing will happen," she says.

Before taking on her current position, Hovey served as a 911 dispatcher with Santa Clara County for 22 years. There she trained new dispatchers, and after dealing with situations like the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and fires in the Santa Cruz mountains, Hovey began seeing the virtue in preaching prevention. She then moved into a position with the county office of emergency services.

"My interest started to turn away from single site emergencies," she says. "I realized I could have a much greater impact by preventing problems, by telling people what they need to expect. We need them to not call 911."

After her predecessor retired, Hovey took the job in Cupertino at the prompting of the county fire department, and has since seen the city become one of the best-prepared in the area for a major disaster. "Of course, I didn't know there would be a 9-11," she says. "Now, people are listening."

As the one full-time employee devoted to Cupertino's emergency services, Hovey spearheads most of her department's programs, leaving tasks like scheduling classes to her half-time employee and scores of volunteers. "It did take a lot of hours to get the grant," she says, "but it's going to be well worth it."