Princeton Receives $50K Grant For Climate Emergencies

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton has received a $50,000 grant to help prepare for climate -related emergencies, town officials announced Friday morning. The grant was awarded by the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, according to the town and Sustainable Princeton.

The goal of the project is to help prepare for weather-related emergencies and to better anticipate the needs of the town’s most vulnerable residents. Doing so will help reduce the demand for emergency responses and allow the town to focus on emergencies that can’t be prevented throughout the community, officials said.

On June 18, emergency response personnel will meet with managers of Princeton’s affordable housing facilities, nursing home and other facilities that house vulnerable residents. At that time, officials said they will run a “table-top exercise” to help identify emergency response strengths and where improvements can be made.

The grant money will be used for this and other activities that also focus on improving Princeton’s emergency response communications and updating the Emergency Operations Plan for weather related emergencies. Officials will use that information to strengthen the community’s resiliency to the impacts of the changing climate, as outlined in Princeton’s Climate Action Plan, officials said.

“As Hurricanes Sandy and Irene and the increased frequency of violent storms have demonstrated, climate change is already bringing intense weather to our region,” Sustainable Princeton Executive Director Molly Jones said. “We are so grateful to the Health Impact Project for its forward-thinking partnership to help put in place the preventative processes required to better prepare our community as a whole, and in particular our most climate vulnerable community member, for climate crises.”