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1. What is Westwood Office of Emergency Management?

Westwood’s Office of Emergency Management represents our local participation in our nation's official emergency management structure:

1. Federal Emergency Management Association
2. New Jersey Office Emergency Management (NJSP)
3. Bergen County Office Emergency Management
4. Westwood Office of Emergency Management (OEM)

2. What is the Office of Emergency Management’s mission?

The Office of Emergency Management's (OEM) mission is to "Implement an Emergency Plan and Direct Response"

This is accomplished through coordination of Borough resources with Borough department heads:

• Agencies
  • Red Cross
• County
  • Haz-Mat
  • Health
  • Office of Emergency Management
• Federal
  • Coast Guard
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Municipal
  • Neighboring Communities
• State
  • New Jersey Department of Health
  • New Jersey Office of Emergency Management
  • New Jersey State Police

3. What is the Office of Emergency Management's role?

Should an emergency arise that would cause the activation of the Office of Emergency Management Organization, and department heads would remain in charge of their respective sections. However, requests for communications, movements, resources and needs would be coordinated through the incident command post site or at the Emergency Operations Center.

4. Who is part of Westwood’s Office of Emergency Management?

The following groups make up Westwood’s Office of Emergency Management:

• Board of Education
• Building
• Citizen Volunteers
• City Council
• Department of Public Works
• Engineering
• Fire
• Health
• Police
• Social Service

5. How does the Office of Emergency Management achieve its mission?

Efforts by the Westwood Office of Emergency Management to achieve its mission include:

• Mitigation - Activities that eliminate or reduce the risk of disaster
  • Building codes
  • Flood plain management
  • Insurance
  • Public education
• Preparedness
  • Exercise
  • Planning
  • Public information systems and warning
  • Training
• Recovery - Mitigation measures such as temporary housing and food, restoring non-vital Borough services
  • Short term - operations that seek to restore critical services and meet basic needs
  • Long term - actions that restore community to normal state
• Response
  • Direction/Control
  • Emergency service to address immediate and short term effects of a emergency/ disaster
  • Evacuation
  • Warning

6. What goes into preparedness?

Several elements go into preparedness, including:

• Emergency Operations Plan - on file with County / State
  • Address all emergencies - Weather related, Hazmat, Terrorism, WMD
  • Describes alert and Warning protocol - Radio, Television, Auto-dialing systems
  • Describes critical facilities, shelters, roads, waterways
  • Describes direction and control protocol of Police, Fire, medical, DPW services
  • Describes use of assets for all emergency / disaster situations, evacuation procedures
• Local Emergency Planning Committee  / Haz-Mat - Local Emergency Planning Committee
  • Quarterly meetings
• Office of Emergency Management
  • Monthly meetings