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New York: Local Resources

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The Citizen Preparedness Corps: a genuinely large state-run program

New York’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services runs the Citizen Preparedness Corps, a free training program open to any resident, delivered online in English plus 12 other languages. This is a notably larger, more institutionalized state preparedness effort than most of the other states covered on this site.

Scale and reach

As of this writing, more than 437,000 people have completed the Citizen Preparedness Corps course. The 13-language availability (including Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and others) specifically targets New York’s large immigrant and limited-English-proficiency population, a similar equity-focused design choice to California’s Listos California campaign.

Where to find it: dhses.ny.gov hosts registration and course access.

Ready New York: the NYC-specific companion campaign

Within New York City specifically, NYC Emergency Management runs its own parallel campaign, Ready New York, covering the same core steps (emergency plan, meeting place, home supplies, a Go Bag) but tailored to city-specific hazards, including guidance on basement apartment flood risk directly informed by the Hurricane Ida deaths covered on the Risks page.

Where to find it: nyc.gov/em.

Cornell Cooperative Extension: New York’s version of USU/OSU/UC ANR/AgriLife/UF IFAS

Cornell Cooperative Extension runs the same category of land-grant Extension program as every other state covered on this site, administered county by county since 1975.

  • Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Program: requires a minimum of 55 hours of coursework plus a required Action Project and 60 hours of volunteer service to earn certification. Not every New York county has the resources to run a program, so availability varies more than in some other states.

Where to find it: gardening.cals.cornell.edu lists participating counties; contact your local CCE office to confirm whether it runs a Master Gardener program.

CERT: a large city-run program plus independent county teams

Unlike most of the other states covered so far, New York City runs its CERT program directly through NYC Emergency Management, with instructors from the FDNY and NYPD Auxiliary Unit, rather than leaving it entirely to independent local chapters.

What NYC's program looks like

Basic training runs three times a year as an 11-session cycle, open to any NYC resident or anyone who works in the city, covering fire safety, light search and rescue, disaster medical operations, and traffic control, with a one-year volunteer commitment expected after graduation.

Where to find it: within NYC, nyc.gov/cert. Outside the city, several counties, Westchester and Nassau among them, run their own independent CERT programs; search “[your county] CERT” if you’re elsewhere in the state.

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