This winter and spring, Wayland’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) will be conducting training for those who are interested in becoming members of the CERT team. Training will take place on Monday evenings, 7-9pm, beginning March 6th at the Wayland Public Safety Building, at the intersection of Routes 27 and 20, and will run from 10-12 weeks.
In addition to this multi-week, comprehensive training course, CERT also conducts sessions on a variety of relevant topics throughout the year. As an example, on January 30th, CERT trained its members on how to set up and operate an emergency shelter.
CERT is comprised of volunteer residents of Wayland who are willing to assist the town in the event of any emergency that requires additional backup resources. CERT’s main responsibility is to operate and staff the town’s emergency shelter, located at the Wayland Middle School, in the event of a disaster caused by blizzards, hurricanes, or other situations forcing people to leave their homes to seek shelter.
CERT operates under the direction of Wayland’s Emergency Management Director (Police Chief Robert Irving) and the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC).
No special skills are required to join CERT. The standard FEMA training program offered covers such items as disaster preparedness, fire safety, first aid, disaster medical operations and psychology, light search and rescue operations, and terrorism. The CERT team is divided up into several sub-teams, including shelter, first aid, animal rescue and care, and general support.
Once trained, members participate when available and to the extent of their comfort level.
So please consider becoming a member of Wayland CERT and learn how to take care of yourself, family and neighbors in the event of an emergency! For more information, and to register for the upcoming training, please contact Joseph Gordon, Wayland CERT Coordinator, at (617) 835-3266 or via email at gordon@waylandcert.org.
