Council's primary civil defence emergency management responsibility is to ready the Kawerau Community for response in times of disaster through heightened awareness and good planning.
Council promotes public awareness and education programmes, training and volunteers, exercises and provides support and co-ordination for community groups that will have roles in the event of a major disaster.
Council maintains a "ready to set up" facility if an emergency occurs, a welfare organisation and a rescue unit.
You Can Receive Free Txt Alerts
For when the chips are down and the balloon goes up, sign up to receive FREE Emergency Email and/or Text Alerts by clicking the 'Subscribe to Emergency Alerts' button on the side. The free alerts will let you know if there is a significant emergency in the region. The texts, from Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management, will be sent only for serious threats to life and property, such as tsunami warnings, major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and severe weather events where time is of the essence in getting people to take action. The system will be used only for serious threats, and include a very short simple message outlining the threat and telling people to listen to the radio for more information. Once the threat is over, people will also get an all-clear message.
To sign up for the free alerts, click the red alert button on the side.
When Disaster Strikes
Knowing what is happening in the event of a disaster can help keep you and your family safe.
To keep up with what is happening and what you should do, tune into the local radio station lXX for updates and messages from Civil Defence.
Click on the lxx logo to listen to lXX Live Stream on-line, or tune your radio to one of the frequencies listed there.
Personal Preparation
You can help in the following ways:
- Prepare your own household emergency plan
- Join a Neighbourhood Support Group
- Join a Civil Defence Volunteer/Welfare Section
- Make sure that you and your family are prepared for an emergency.
As a guide, you should have enough food and water for each person to last three days and a few other essentials:
- Canned, non perishable food
- Water (3 litres per person per day - remember the storage you already have in your hot water cylinder)
- Portable BBQ or other means of cooking
- Personal medication
- Personal papers including identification (e.g. birth certificate)
- Torch, batteries
- Radio, batteries
- Toilet paper, plastic bags and bucket
If you have family pets, you need to include them in your planning.
For further information, contact the Council, 07 306 9009.
