State Climatologist at Rutgers University Awarded Nearly $50,000 in Emergency Management Subgrants

The Office of the State Climatologist at Rutgers University received an Emergency Management Open Initiative (EMOI) subgrant for nearly $50,000, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM) announced on Monday.

The subgrants are distributed by NJOEM for preparedness initiatives. According to NJOEM, a total of $607,312 in subgrants was approved for 20 government, academic and private non-profit organizations on Monday.

“It’s important to recognize and support innovation in emergency preparedness efforts among the various sectors of New Jersey’s communities,” Colonel Rick Fuentes, State Police superintendent and director of NJOEM, said in a prepared statement. “These projects show great promise with regard to enhancing our State’s resilience against future disasters.”

The State Climatologist at Rutgers received $49,998 to maintain New Jersey Weather Net Station it operates. The grant money is dedicated to helping ensure hardware and software stability; improve data accuracy; improve a weather ready web portal; conduct training; and the ability to provide continued support during adverse weather conditions, according to NJOEM.

NJOEM encouraged subgrant applicants to consider projects in the following areas: emergency planning, training, and exercising; hazard analyses; continuity of operations; access and functional needs planning; evacuation capabilities; resource management; shelter planning; improvement of incident response capability; alert and warning; communications and interoperability capability; or public  education and awareness campaigns.