Tulsa's 'Safe and Secure' program

Tuesday, January 6th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

City officials say Tulsa is a national model for disaster preparedness. Not only are our police, fire and medical professionals ready to respond in the event of a disaster. But now the city is training ordinary citizens.

News on 6 anchor Scott Thompson explains the Safe and Secure Program. The idea behind the Safe and Secure Program is that it takes everyone in the community to respond to a disaster.

Tulsa's Citizen Corps is training 20 teams across the city to be ready. Westport Apartments joined the program this year. The Tulsa Citizen Corps will hold several training sessions for Westport residents, ranging from CPR, to how to deal with bioterrorism.

Each safe team picks a project to make their environment safer. And Westport has decided to equip all of the apartments with fire extinguishers. Property manager Caryl Baldwin: "Everybody is very concerned about what's goingon and I think its going to be a great benefit for a lot of residents for the ones who already live here and the ones that are coming in as well."

If you're interested in starting a Safe and Secure team in your business or neighborhood, call the Citizen Corps at 596-2739.

Training usually lasts for about two months, there are aboout 10 different training sessions you can choose from.