Mahwah CERT Team Assists In Red Cross Flood Damage Assessments

As a result of this month’s flooding throughout Bergen County, 12 members of Mahwah’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) assisted the Red Cross in gathering damage data in Wayne and Pompton Lakes, according to CERT member Bill Deegan.

The volunteer program, which is run out of the Mahwah Office of Emergency Management, assisted the Red Cross during a “three-day period in a street-by-street survey of flood-stricken residential areas of Wayne and Pompton Lakes.”

According to Deegan, the help provided by the Mahwah emergency response team is being compiled with other data as part of “ongoing recovery efforts.”

The CERT program, part of a national organization, “is made up of volunteer residents who are trained to support professional first responders (police, fire, EMTs, et al) in all types of emergency situations while serving the community in other ways during non-emergency times,” Deegan said.

According to the Mahwah CERT website, the program “provides residents with basic training in what to do before, during and after a disaster. Most importantly, the training aids the participant in protecting themselves and their families during emergency situations.”

The classes are provided to volunteers periodically at the in Mahwah.

Interested residents can find more information about how to be trained by contacting Mahwah CERT coordinator Allan Becker at 201-960-1932, emailing mahwahcert@optonline.net or visiting www.mahwahcert.org.