Emergency Shelters

South Hadley has had all of its schools surveyed as emergency shelters in the event a community emergency requires us to temporarily shelter residents. Currently, the primary shelter is the Michael E. Smith Middle School located at 100 Mosier Drive.

This would allow us to safely handle approximately 50 to 100 people during an emergency situation. In the event that we needed to accommodate more people, several choices are available. We would either open a larger building, such as South Hadley High School, or look for other shelters in the local area and send people to those, if they can safely get there.

Announcing When Shelters Open

In the event an emergency situation requires us to open a shelter we will announce this by telephone message over our CivicReady notification system. We will also use any social media channels that we can access to publicize the shelter opening. As a secondary method, we will use public media, such as radio and TV, to announce our shelter plans. If all other methods fail, we will attempt to erect signs in central areas and send people to neighborhoods to pass the word.

However, we must acknowledge that the last two methods may take time to accomplish. They will depend upon the number of people we may be able to dedicate to this and other factors involved in the nature of the situation that could hinder our efforts.

Any questions should be directed to the town Emergency Management Department.