If CERT Was Activated For Whale Strandings: A Field Behavior Breakdown for CERT Training

 

By Laura Joki

Let’s pretend, for training, that CERT responds to whale strandings. We don’t. But this incident gave us a clean, textbook version of human behavior to study. It showed exactly how emergencies unfold when people arrive before professionals.

Saturday evening (11/15/25), a whale washed up tangled in gear, exhausted, rolling in the surf, and visibly distressed. People reached the whale fast, and our instinct pushes us to help other living things.

What happened next is the problem. An untrained bystander cut off the entangling gear and turned it in, and there was reportedly still debris in its mouth as well. People surged toward the whale with heavy surf behind it in wind and rain. They surrounded it, even though being near the whale at all is a violation of federal law. Some tried pushing it out during high tide, in the dark. Overnight during low tide, they poured water on it. By morning, untrained citizens tried again to push the whale during high tide, some knee-deep, some waist-deep, all with hands on a multi-ton, 28-foot humpback in an unstable surf zone. Rumors say someone tried a rope-around-the-tail maneuver, reportedly further injuring the animal.

Every one of those people put themselves at risk of becoming a secondary casualty.

A distressed whale in the surf is extremely dangerous because of physics alone. One twitch can crush a leg or a rib cage. One wave can drag someone under. One roll can pin multiple people at once. This wasn’t hypothetical. This was real-time risk, ignored because people assumed their good intentions equaled skill.

Meanwhile, the social side of the disaster unfolded exactly as expected. Rumors flew. Posts spread with no communications officer. People argued, theorized, and invented strategies. Some insisted the whale was rolling deeper. Others insisted it was rolling shallower. Others claimed it was crying for help. None of it aligned with supporting trained responders.

Locals crowded the beach, parked along the highway, filled neighborhood streets, and blocked access routes. Traffic was chaotic. Emotions were high, and emotions rose.

Sunday morning, one marine biologist had delayed arrival after seeing rumors of a massive crowd. When she learned the crowd was smaller, just disorganized, she came. If someone had been on scene communicating real conditions, she would have arrived sooner.

A charged emotional crowd is its own hazard, unpredictable, reactive, and dangerous for both itself and the professionals entering it. Eventually, a few volunteers in vests helped provide some crowd control on Sunday while trained rescuers did their work.

Monday morning, responders arrived with cones, signs, and more trained volunteers. But the culture had already been established the day and night before, and rules were optional. People stepped around signs. People ignored volunteers telling them to stay back. Once a crowd decides boundaries don’t matter, that message sticks. By mid-morning Monday, the volunteers had to become very firm with the crowd.

This allowed a large volunteer group, along with trained professionals, using ropes and pulleys rigged up the night before to try turning the whale’s head toward the ocean and move it toward deeper surf. High tide came and went around 10 a.m. The whale did not return to the ocean.

Experts assessed it later that morning. The animal was exhausted, injured, and unable to survive further attempts. The decision was made to euthanize. At 3 p.m. on 11/17/2025, the whale was put to sleep in the presence of Indigenous drummers and singers.

That is where the incident ended. But for CERT, the lesson is everything that happened before.

Now let’s run the same incident again, but with CERT activated.

SCENE ARRIVAL:

Actual: People self-deployed instantly. People were in the surf and surrounding the whale, distressing it further. The crowd shaped the scene before responders even arrived.

CERT Version: Assessment. Perimeter. Define kill zone, warm zone, and cold zone. Establish a clear boundary.

Lesson: Fifteen minutes of trained structure changes the entire dynamic.

PERIMETER AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Actual: People stood too close, waded into the surf, and became part of the incident.

CERT Version: We keep civilians out of the surf. We prevent crowd pressure. We stop secondary victims before they happen. No one goes near a multi-ton thrashing hazard.

Lesson: Keeping people organized keeps people safe and prevents injury and further issues.

CROWD MANAGEMENT AND ACCESS

Actual: Highway clogged. Side streets jammed. Responders maneuvered around the crowd instead of the hazard.

CERT Version: Redirect parking. Clear access routes.

Lesson: Stabilize the human environment so experts can work.

HAZARD COMMUNICATION

Actual: The public acted on instinct and emotion, unaware of physics, environmental risk, or federal law.

CERT Version: Calm, simple communication. “This is dangerous. This is illegal. This is why. Stay back.”

Lesson: People comply when someone trained spells out the risk.

RUMOR AND INFORMATION CONTROL

Actual: Rumors multiplied. No unified message. Social media ran wild.

CERT Version: One voice. One message. Rumors interrupted before they spin into chaos.

Lesson: Help arrives faster when the scene is understandable.

RESPONDER SAFETY

Actual: Responders stepped into an unstable, emotional crowd.

CERT Version: CERT becomes the buffer.

Lesson: We create space and calm so experts can do their job.

VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT

Actual: People wanted to help and some chose the most dangerous methods possible.

CERT Version: We redirect energy into safe, useful tasks like guiding people, relaying updates, maintaining the perimeter, clearing access points, and spotting hazards.

Lesson: People want to contribute. CERT gives them a way that does not add risk.

THE FINAL TAKEAWAY

This wasn’t a CERT callout, but the scene contained every classic disaster failure mode. Convergence, rumor cascades, emotional logic, unsafe self-deployment, blocked access, crowd escalation, responders exposed, and preventable risk. And this was for one whale.

Our potential emergencies often give us more than one tragedy. They may give us thousands of people, hazards, rumors, and decisions stacking at once.

• CERT exists because these human failure modes are predictable.
• CERT exists to stabilize the scene until professionals arrive.
• CERT exists to keep the public safe from the incident and the incident safe from the public.

This wasn’t our activation.

But it was the perfect live-fire demonstration of why we train.

Read more HERE from NOAA Fisheries.