Each volunteer team must have at least three members and a designated leader.

The designated Team Leader (TL) is responsible for ensuring team safety, communicating with the CERT volunteers, and carrying out the assigned tasks. Small groups of CERT volunteers become a "buddy team" and respond to incidents/tasks as directed. Another volunteer serves as a runner and relays messages between the task team and TL and between the TL and designated emergency responder at the Incident Command Post (ICP).

Reminder: For safety reasons, volunteers do not work alone. Remember the “T” in CERT stands for “team”!