Take our Poll: Does Vera Cruz Need an Emergency Shelter?

In the wake of back-to-back extreme weather episodes that left Vera Cruz and much of Upper Milford Township without electricity for several days, two Vera Cruz residents asked the to establish a permanent emergency shelter in Vera Cruz at the board’s Dec. 1 meeting.

Andrew Young and David Lindstrom said they did what they could to help their neighbors during the extended power outage that followed the October snowstorm. Now they want to set something up in the community to make sure their neighbors have a place to go when the next disaster strikes.

Specifically, the men asked the supervisors if a shelter could be established in the community center across from the . To do so wouldn’t take much in their estimation – just some food, water and a portable generator.

They mentioned the fact that opened up as a shelter in the aftermath of the snowstorm, but most people had no way of knowing that at the time.

“We just need a place that whatever kind of catastrophe may happen should open automatically and people should know to come,” Lindstrom said. “(After the snowstorm) most people in Vera Cruz had no idea where to go.

“We are a little community and we should be proud of that. I don’t mind going out of the way for people. We just need some place where we could take our elders if they are cold to be warm,” Lindstrom said.