Saturday, January 5, 2013
Wendy Demeraski, who replaced Ira Marks as the borough's emergency management coordinator this week, was sworn in on Thursday night by Mayor John Cosgrove.
Fair Lawn officially welcomed a new emergency management coordinator Thursday when Wendy Demeraski was sworn into the role at the council's re-organization meeting. Demeraski assumes the part-time, but essential role of coordinating the borough's response in times of emergency that had been held previously by Ira Marks, who retired at the end of last year. "This is a significant event," said borough manager Tom Metzler Thursday, himself a former Fair Lawn OEM coordinator. "She will be only the fourth emergency managment coordinator in the [borough's history]." Demeraski, 32, is also the youngest OEM coordinator and the first female to hold the post in borough history. As such her duties will involve maintaining the borough's emergency …
Monday, December 17, 2012
Fair Lawn High School students practiced an evacuation security drill on Friday.
This article originally appeared on June 12, 2012, but is being re-run in the wake of Friday's school shooting in Newtown, Conn. An onrushing sea of Fair Lawn High School students pour from the school’s back doors and into the warm afternoon air en route to Sasso Field as part of the year’s final security drill. By now, the students have the hang of it: evacuate the building, walk to the field, ascend the bleachers and take up with your first period class so the teacher can take attendance. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, said Detective Lt. Michael Uttel, who was on hand from the police department as a tactical safety consultant. “Over the last 10 years we’ve really perfected it,” he said. “Everything started as a result of …
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
One year after Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc in Fair Lawn, the borough has moved to a new, and what it expects to be, more effective emergency response model
If Hurricane Irene swept through Fair Lawn today, the borough wouldn't employ the same emergency response model it used last year. Instead, it would return to procedures used during 1999's Tropical Storm Floyd that were shelved for last August's federally declared disaster. Current borough manager Tom Metzler, who has extensive emergency management experience and was actually working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Irene touched down, said that while he would not second guess the previous regime, things would operate differently under his watch. "There would be a much greater emphasis on our emergency operations center and representation of all of the individuals that we needed around the table," said Metzler, who …
Thursday, February 23, 2012
County Community Emergency Response Training begins in Paramus this week and Mahwah next week
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
UPDATE on Feb. 23: CERT classes in Paramus, that were to be held at Bergen Community College, have been canceled due to lack of enrollment. In response, Fair Lawn will be offering its own CERT class, as it had in the past, but it's still being sorted out. More details to come next week. -- Fair Lawn residents interested in receiving eight weeks of free Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) can do so starting this week. CERT classes -- which provide residents with basic training in what to do before, during and after a disaster -- will be offered beginning Wednesday night at Bergen Community College in Paramus. Classes run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. every Wednesday, April 18. Identical classes will also be offered at the Bergen County Law…
Friday, September 23, 2011
Residents interested in having their homes mitigated, either through acquisition or other long-term flood solutions, can sign up for grant consideration in Borough Hall this weekend
Residents who have suffered repeated flooding in recent years and are interested in having the Federal Emergency Management Agency mitigate their property can visit Fair Lawn Emergency Management in Borough Hall Room 201 this weekend to sign an interest form. Signing a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program interest form is not binding and does not commit a resident to carry out the mitigation of their property. It simply places residents on a list that FEMA will then consider when approving HMGP grants. If a resident is approved for an HMGP grant, the agency will either purchase the resident’s home, elevate the structure using stilts or perform some other flood mitigation procedure, like retrofitting structures or introducing vegetative …
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Charts break down the number of Fair Lawn residents and businesses that have been affected in some way by last week's flooding
It’s been a week now since Irene became the first hurricane to make landfall in New Jersey in 108 years. She swept through Fair Lawn last Sunday morning, dumping rain, uprooting trees and outing power lines along the way. But more devastating than Irene’s initial jaunt through town were the slow-rising Passaic flood waters that followed her. On Tuesday morning, at their highest point, Passaic River water levels measured 14.19 feet according to the flood gauge nearest Fair Lawn – more than five feet above “major” flood level. The one and only time levels have risen above Tuesday’s cresting point came way back in 1903, when Fair Lawn was still farmland. That year, they reached 17.5 feet. “Flooding was what I expected,” Fair Lawn’s emergency …
BellairBerdan
7:21 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
My point Zak is that it appears we are being groomed for another big expenditure, that in my opinion is unnecessary with today's technology. Will we spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a matching grant when nearly everything can be accomplished on a few $400 iphones? more ›