MEDIA RELEASE

Monday, 24 February 2014

Himatangi first up for community readiness

Get Ready at Home ambassadors will be knocking on doors around Himatangi over the coming weeks to ask whether residents feel ready to get through an emergency.

The householders’ survey is the first stage in a Get Ready at Home project being piloted by the Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group.

It aims to determine whether people know which disasters could affect their community, if they have an emergency plan and supplies and whether they’d like further assistance from a trained Get Ready at Home team.

Horizons Regional Council emergency management advisor Ross Brannigan says the Region’s Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group has worked closely with residents of Himatangi over the past few years, making it an obvious choice for the programme.

“Himitangi is a very proactive community when it comes to emergency management. We recently worked with the Himatangi Civil Defence Community Response Group to develop a community response plan.

“We’re really encouraging local people to embrace this opportunity to get involved and help us ascertain where they’re at with their preparedness. Once we have this feedback we’ll be able to either roll out the entire programme, which includes home-readiness workshops and visits, or scale it back depending on the needs of the community,” he says.

Get Ready at Home ambassadors will be wearing high visibility vests emblazoned with the Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence logo as well as ID tags.

Anyone not at home during the survey period will be sent a copy to return via post. More information on how you can get prepared at home is available online at www.getthru.govt.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media