Wayland Town Crier 4/3/14: Wayland event encourages emergency preparedness. Wayland citizens and many visitors from surrounding communities got an up-close and personal look at what…

Wayland Town Crier 11/22/12: Wayland CERT takes charge during Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast with a vengeance. The Boston area generally escaped the devastation and destruction experienced by New York and New Jersey, but there was still reason to believe that residents of Wayland and surrounding towns might need disaster assistance. Long periods without power could leave many without the ability to store or prepare food or heat their houses. Flooding was also a possibility. These conditions signaled the need to prepare the community to deal with a potential crisis. On the evening of Oct. 29, when Sandy was almost at full force, the Wayland Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) gathered at Wayland Middle School to set up an emergency shelter for any residents who might need it over the coming days.

Wayland Town Crier 4/23/12: Community Emergency Response Team graduation. Graduation day for the new group of Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members was March 26. Ten individuals from Wayland, Sudbury and Framingham completed the 10-week program, which makes them members of the President’s Citizen Corps (part of Homeland Security), as well as part of the larger group of CERT members in town.

Wayland Town Crier 4/8/12: Community Emergency Response Team reacts to tornado. As part of the Wayland Community Emergency Response Team’s (CERT) 10-week training program, the trainees participated in a simulated search and rescue event at the Public Safety Building. This was the second search and rescue exercise during the 10-week training program.

Wayland Town Crier 4/2/12: Community Emergency Response Team looks for new members. After a successful year in which Wayland’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) successfully assisted the town by opening an emergency shelter for three days in response to the October snowstorm, the group is now growing their ranks by training another group of volunteers.

Wayland Town Crier 11/23/11: Emergency shelter allows safe place for Wayland residents. Wayland has a long tradition of “neighbor helping neighbor” and that was, again, apparent with the recent snowstorm. There were many who stayed with friends or family, people invited those without power over for dinner, etc. For those who needed a place to warm up or sleep until their power was restored, Wayland’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) opened the town’s emergency shelter at the Middle School. On Sunday morning, Police Chief Robert Irving, acting as the town’s emergency management director, asked CERT to open the Middle School as a “comfort station” for those who needed a place to stay warm or use the facilities. By late afternoon it was decided we needed more and the shelter was opened 24/7 for Wayland residents as well as others in the region. For three days the shelter was open to all who needed it. Dozens of people (and their pets!) came by to just get warm, take showers, charge their phones, get Internet access or stay the night.

On August 25th, three days before Hurricane Irene was scheduled to come through Wayland, the town began considering the need to open a shelter.  The…