2011-2012 Annual Report - Full Version - PDF - Palmerston North ...

CommunitySupportWhat the Council Does Civil DefenceActivity - Civil DefenceWhat the Council doesThe Council provides civil defence services to helppeople prepare for, respond to, and recover froma civil defence emergency, such as an earthquake,flood, volcanic eruption, major fire, or widespreadpower or communication failure.The Council also acts as the Rural Fire Authority torespond to and put out non-structural fires in therural areas.The Council meets these responsibilities byproviding community education programmes,coordination with other civil defence andemergency service organisations, a civil defenceresponse organisation of trained Council staff andvolunteers, a local disaster recovery coordinationplan, rural fire plans and a trained rural fire team,and an emergency operations centre.Why the Council does this and itscontribution to Council vision andmajor goalsThe Council does this to help build a sense ofcommunity and to help people feel safe.When an emergency does occur the Council willwant to ensure that people, businesses, schools,community groups, sports groups, etc. can do asmuch as possible to look after themselves. It alsowants them to be able to recover as quickly aspossible from civil defence emergencies.Hence this Activity contributes indirectly to theCouncil’s goals of being a City where people wantto live and businesses want to be.The Council also has to meet legal requirements.The Council’s legislative obligations are set out inthe Civil Defence and Emergency ManagementAct and the Forest and Rural Fires Act.What happened in the yearThe big emphasis for this year has been aboutthe learnings from the Christchurch earthquakesof 2010 and 2011. Public education to both thegeneral public and business community has beenfocused around relating this event to PalmerstonNorth. There is now a greater awareness ofthe reality of such a situation occurring andaccordingly the community have made thenecessary arrangements to cope with such anevent. A recent survey shows an improved uptakein both awareness and preparedness.This Unit continues to work closely withNeighbourhood Support and the businesscommunity to get the message through. Therelease of the first list of earthquake pronebuildings has also given a focus to this subject.Another major focus has been around theintroduction and implementation of EMIS(Emergency Management Information System)to the staff and agencies that will be using it.This is ongoing and will be trialled in “OperationShakeOut” in September 2012. EMIS is a one-stopshop for managing information, listing resourcesand integrating GIS. Three Council staff have beentrained to train other Council staff in the system.The big emphasis for this year hasbeen about the learnings fromChristchurch 2011. Public educationto both the general public andbusiness community has beenfocused around relating this eventto Palmerston North.The Council has also played an active role inthe Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence andEmergency Management Group. This ensuresthat a collaborative approach will be taken to anyemergency in the region. The focus has been onimproving welfare plans and establishing a homevisit programme to encourage more people to getprepared for emergencies.Looking forward, work is being completedaround the establishment of a backup EmergencyOperations Centre if the one in the basement ofthe Civic Administration Building is unavailablefor some reason. Level 2 of the FMG Stadium hasbeen identified as that place.46 Palmerston North City Council Annual Report 2011/12