Media Release: Good turnout for Westport evacuation information meeting
A public meeting in Westport last night attracted around 150 locals to hear about the Westport Emergency Management environment and enhanced evacuation planning for the area.
The people of Westport and surrounds are no strangers to emergency situations, and the goal of the Get Ready – Go!campaign was to encourage people to think ahead in the face of a possible flooding emergency.
Most local residents should have recently received a copy of the Westport: Get Ready – Go! Evacuation Guide in their letterboxes along with a short Household Evacuation Plan template to fill out with key information to help in the event of an emergency. These were also made available at the meeting.
Attendees heard from a range of speakers including Emergency Management Project Lead Henry Dowler, Mayor Chris Russell, West Coast Regional Council Buller representative Chris Coll and Buller District Council Chief Executive Simon Pickford.
The work of the Resilient Westport Emergency Management team has focused on delivering the Westport Flood: Evacuation Response Plan (for controllers and Emergency Management staff) and rolling that out to the community in a user-friendly way. The goal being to help translate that into useful tools people can rely on if facing a flooding evacuation situation, or other emergency.
West Coast Regional Council (WCRC) Manager Hydrology Samwell Warren talked about the science behind flood modelling and flood warnings.
West Coast Emergency Management manager Claire Brown also shared valuable information on who does what in an emergency from a response point of view, along with tips for what people can do to be prepared. Her presentation was augmented by a short video demonstrating the phases of an evacuation.
Residents had the opportunity to chat afterwards including representatives from FENZ (Fire and Emergency New Zealand), NZ Police, West Coast Health, St John Ambulance and animal welfare, as well as local emergency controllers.
Claire Brown says it was good to see how many people are interested in knowing more about how to prepare themselves for difficult times, like evacuations, and hearing the things they wanted to know more on.
“We had positive feedback from people at the event that the information we shared was helpful, especially in terms of the science behind emergency responses and all the things that are going on behind the scenes. We also heard from people who have already filled out the Household Evacuation Plan template with their families and feel personally better prepared. This is fantastic to see,” says Ms Brown.
The enhanced evacuation work for Westport was funded by Resilient Westport and will be managed by West Coast Emergency Management going forward.
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For further information please contact:
Resilient Westport Communications team
The image below shows some of the speakers at the event including Buller District Council (BDC) CE Simon Pickford, Hydrology expert Samwell Warren (far left) and West Coast Emergency Management manager Claire Brown (far right).
Others pictured include WCRC Chief Executive Darryl Lew, Chair Colin Smith along with representatives of WCRC and BDC staff, police, ambulance and other members of the emergency services and civil defence response teams.
