Join Wayland’s Community Emergency Response Team

CERT trainees practice moving and transporting an injury victim

This fall and early winter, 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 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. beginning September 24th at the Wayland Public Safety Building, at the intersection of routes 27 and 20, and will run for 10 weeks.

In addition to this multi-week, comprehensive training course, CERT also conducts sessions on a variety of relevant topics throughout the year.

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, disaster medical operations including CPR and first aid, light search and rescue operations, CERT organization, and terrorism. In practice, 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, via email at gordon@waylandcert.org, or Doug Leard, LEPC Chairman, at DJL@emergencypreparedness4all.com.

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