Home>Objectives > Coordination Coordination & Collaboration in planning and procedures is accomplished in meetings of the FORUM.

Coordination and Collaboration during a storm is performed while under pressure where errors or failure to preform could have serious consequenses. Coordination and collaboration between neighborhood CERTs before, during and after an emergency is accomplished by providing a robust communication system between neighborhoods otherwise isolated by the storm.

Coordination and Collaboration between CERT ICPs might include:

• providing or requesting assistance in available manpower
• providing or requesting supplies and/or material
• cooperatively performing an action or activity with another CERT

This live, real-time Coordination and Collaboration happens at the Tier 2 of the three tier communication system.

---

Tier 1 is vertical coordination between the HOA/POA Incident Command Post (ICP) and the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center. Tier 1 operates on a Directed Net controlled by the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center. Participants on this net include all Palm Beach County community (HOA/POA) CERTs with recognized and certified Emergency Communications (EmComm) radio operators.

---

	Tier 2 is coordination in both vertical and horizontal directions: vertical communication between the 24 neighborhood CERT ICPs and the HOA/POA ICP horizontal communication between a neighborhood ICP and other neighborhood ICPs Tier 2 operates on a Directed Net controlled by the HOA/POA ICP. Participants on this net include all 24 neighborhood CERT ICPs and the HOA/POA ICP.

---

	Tier 3 is vertical coordination between the neighborhood ICP and its Contact Teams in the field. Tier 3 operates on an open net by the neighborhood CERT ICP. Participants on this net include the ICP radio operator and that neighborhood's Contact Team leader.

---

In order to control the communication requirements of 24 CERTs talking in both the verticle and horizontal directions on the tier 2 net, we must use a Directed Net.

This means that each person in the neighborhood ICP that generates message traffic must learn how to:

• create terse, short, simple messages
• triage messages to be sure that they do need to be sent over the radio, and to what destination.




This means that each neighborhood ICP radio operator must:

• Log in and out of the net when the ICP is operational
• learn Directed Network protocol
• keep chatter and idle conversation off the net

---