Charlottesville-UVA Albemarle County, Community Emergency Response Team

CERT InfoTeam

The Charlottesville-UVa-Albemarle CERT InfoTeam provides support to the Emergency Communications Center (ECC). The ECC handles all emergency calls for the city of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, and Albemarle County. In addition, police, fire, and rescue radio transmissions for incident response pass through the ECC.

In order to most efficiently use the professional ECC staff, the InfoTeam is trained to staff a call center. During an emergency, the Emergency Manager may activate a special Information phone line to provide non-emergency information. Upon activation, the Infoline number is distributed by local media; television, radio, and newspapers. At the request of the Emergency Manager, the InfoTeam will staff the call center to answer the InfoLine (979- INFO). Answers on school closings, roads blocked, or restoration of electricity will aid citizens in their response to crisis. As always, requests for emergency assistance involving life or property are handled by the professional ECC staff.

The InfoTeam members have completed basic CERT, the required ICS courses, and a special training for InfoLine. During the Hurricane Isabel activation, CERT helped staff the 979-INFO line center for several days.