Using Homeland Security grant funds, Mercer County recently purchased five supply trailers containing cots and blankets to boost local municipalities’ ability to provide shelter for their residents during large-scale emergencies.
County Executive Brian M. Hughes asked the Board of Chosen Freeholders to approve agreements at its Dec. 15 meeting allowing Ewing and Hamilton townships to receive two of those trailers, based on recommendations by the Mercer County Mass Care Committee. The Freeholders unanimously approved two resolutions authorizing those agreements, which stipulate that the two municipalities will be responsible for storing and maintaining the trailers and the 180 cots and blankets that each contains.
“In the past, municipalities have requested shelter supplies as a precautionary measure, but we never had enough supplies to deploy ‘just in case,’” Hughes said. “These supplies will help increase our towns’ preparedness for a large-scale emergency such as Superstorm Sandy or Delaware River flooding.”
The five shelter supply trailers were purchased using a total of $89,000 from Mercer County’s 2015 Homeland Security grant. The next municipalities to receive the trailers, pending Freeholder Board approval, will be Trenton and Robbinsville, again based on recommendations by the Mass Care Committee, which was established following Superstorm Sandy to help the county and its communities be better prepared for future emergencies. The recipient of the fifth trailer has not yet been determined.
Hughes said the county hopes to purchase additional shelter supply trailers in the future using its annual Homeland Security grant. In the meantime, he noted, should a town that lacks shelter supplies need them in an emergency, the County’s Office of Emergency Management can make another town’s supply trailer available for temporary use.
The five shelter supply trailers were purchased using a total of $89,000 from Mercer County’s 2015 Homeland Security grant.,
