Disasters Happen! The good news is it’s easy to make sure you and the people and things you care about, are ready. Whether at home, at work, at school or out in the community, there are things we can all do to prepare .
Planning for emergency events is as easy as having a chat with your family, flatmates, friends and neighbours.
It is important you talk about what you would do if you had to leave home in a hurry, were made to stay, were stuck at home or couldn’t get home. You should also think about what you would do if you had no power, no water, no communication or you were ill.
Disasters can happen anytime, and you could be anywhere! Think about if you were at home, at work or the kids were at school.
Check here to start making your plan.
Meet your neighbours. Talk to them about your plan and encourage them to make one too. Swap numbers and stay in touch. You never know when you will need your neighbours!
If you, a member of your family, friend or neighbour has mobility issues, hearing or visual impairments or intellectual disabilities, it is important you take extra time to plan for how you will respond to an emergency.
People who need assistance need to put in place a support network of people close to home or work who can provide support during an event.
Making your home safer will reduce the risk of damage during an emergency as well as allow you to stay in your home.
It is important that you learn about the disasters that might impact you and your home. For example, do you live in a flood prone area, tsunami evacuation zone, or an area vulnerable to earthquakes?
If you are in a flood prone area, it is important to plan and prepare for severe weather events. Stay informed, plan for your family and neighbours, pets and livestock. Think about storing precious items as high off the ground as possible and maybe even storing some sandbags.
If you are renting, it is in your landlord’s best interests if your home is still liveable after an event, so talk to them about making your home safer.
Find out more about the hazards you might face by visiting Know Your Hazards at the top of this page.
When developing your plan, think about being stuck at home and having no water, no power and no communication.
Prepare a getaway kit in case you have to leave your home in a hurry.
In an emergency you may have to leave your home in hurry, have you thought about where you might go? What you would take? What about pets? What about neighbours that might need your help?
Everyone should have a getaway bag with some warm clothes, a bottle of water, some snacks, medications and copies of important documents. Keep your torch, radio (a wind-up radio is a great option) and some cash handy, so you can grab them in a hurry.
Check here for ideas of what to include in your kit.
Before it is time to renew your prescription, put some of your medication aside for your kit. Don’t forget to check the expiry dates.
Did you know that New Zealand has one of the highest companion animal ownership rates in the world with over 65% of households having one or more pets?
We know New Zealanders love their animals and that’s why it is important to think about how you will look after your pets during an emergency.
Check here for some more advice on preparing animals for an emergency from MPI.
Take a photo of you and your pet. On the reverse write down the species, breed, age, sex, distinguishing features, microchip number etc. This will help you prove pet ownership and allow others to assist you should you and your pet become separated.
50% of New Zealand’s land mass is occupied by animals or high stick density, and over 42% of our exports are animal derived.
Your animals are your responsibility. You need to include them in your emergency planning and preparation. Failing to plan for them puts lives at risk when a disaster strikes (such as an earthquake or flood).
Running a business or enterprise keeps you busy, but you should plan for disruption, whether a large earthquake, small power outage, or a disease outbreak or pandemic.
You should consider:
There are a range of resources available to support you developing a plan for your business, but be sure to include your staff so that you can continue to operate or get your business back up a running as soon as possible. We encourage you to take a look at the resources below and find the best one to suit your business needs.
Resilient Organisations (ResOrgs) is a research and consulting group focused on helping businesses to thrive. There are a range of resources including booklets, case studies and videos to support your planning.
As a business it is critical you know and understand your local hazards so that you can include hazard specific planning into your business continuity plan.
Resilient Business is an online platform developed by the Auckland Council, where you can learn more about business resilience, develop a tailored plan and use a self-assessment tool to check your resilience.
Staff are critical to the continuity of your business and a ‘people first’ approach pays dividends. When a disaster strikes you will need your staff to go the extra mile and you will need to support them.
Following a disaster your business may be able to get back up and running, but will your staff? Research shows that businesses that plan for the protection of their people are more likely to survive and recover faster from disasters.
Are your staff prepared at work? Do they know what to do and where to go? Involving staff in the development of plans is important, not only to embed the planning in your organisation but also to ensure better engagement and more ideas!
The Resilient Organisations resource ‘Staffed or Stuffed’ has some great ideas on supporting business resilience through your people.
Engage with staff to complete individual workplace emergency plans.
A recovery plan will help you respond effectively if an incident or crisis affects your business. It aims to shorten your recovery time and minimise losses.
Your recovery plan contains information relating to planning for recovery, as well as the resumption of critical business activities after a crisis has occurred. It also outlines the time frame in which you can realistically expect to resume usual business operations.
Developing a recovery plan gives you a chance to consider how you will get your business back on track if you do experience a crisis. It should include:
Ensure you check that you are adequately insured and after an event, start the insurance claim process early.
There are a number of publications that can support you in the development of these plans.
Education facilities are required under the Education Act to have an emergency plan for how they will manage when a disaster happens. It is important you find out about the plan and support your school community to be better prepared.
Talking to kids about emergencies and involving them in your family planning is important. Talk to them in a honest but not scary way about what might happen in an emergency, what you can all do to stay safe and well, and what your plan is for if you can’t get home. The more involved they are, the less scared they will be if an emergency does happen.
Check with the school what their emergency plans are and ensure you know their meeting places.
There are a range of resources available to support educators at all levels to deliver hazard awareness and preparedness as part of the curriculum.
There are a vast number of hazard awareness and preparedness teaching resources that have been prepared to support students in their learning, however, it is important to consider your local hazards and context. A resource to better understand our local hazards is the Bay of Plenty Regional Council BayHazards viewer, an interactive map. Some of the resources available are linked below.
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Think about how you can encourage the students to get involved and implement the emergency plan at school.
If you have pre-schoolers, use the resource 'Turtle Safe' to teach them what to do if an earthquake occurs. Use the online resource 'What’s the plan Stan' for Primary school aged kids to find out more about hazards and how to be prepared. Go through the resource as a class and all learn together!
The Bay of Plenty is a pretty hazardous region! We have an active volcano on our doorstep, a lot of active fault lines that run across our district leaving us vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunami, as well as the usual risks of severe weather, including flooding and storms.
We know it is really important for everyone to know and understand their hazards, as well as be better prepared, so here are some useful places you can go to find out more information:
BayHazards (2023 Rebuild) - Bay of Plenty Natural Hazards Viewer (arcgis.com)
Do you know the contact numbers of family members and emergency services? If you phone battery has no charge you won't have access to these numbers. Make sure you keep important contact numbers written down.
Knowing your neighbours is so much more important that we can ever imagine. Being socially connected has many benefits but especially in your ability to get through disasters.
When disasters happens you will first check yourself and your surroundings, then your family and then your neighbours. Here’s a few reasons you should get to know your neighbours.
People who are socially connected;
Join a Neighbourhood Support Group. If there isn’t a street coordinator in your street, why not become one? Click the link below to check it out.
Knowing your neighbours has the effect of reducing crime because you are more aware of your neighbour's property and you can keep an eye on things for each other. Neighbourhood Support is a great way to get to know your neighbours and find out about news and events in your community.
When a disaster strikes, it is the community who are the first responders.
Help for people in need comes mostly from neighbours, existing community groups, faith-based organisations and volunteer organisations, such as Neighbourhood Support, Lions, Rotary, Salvation Army, Residents Association, sports clubs and so on.
No one knows a community better than the people that live and work in it and this is why community and community champions (those people who have taken the lead in local community engagement) must come together to develop a Community Response Plan, as it cannot be developed in isolation.
A community response plan covers how your community plans to self-activate and respond in the initial stages of a large scale emergency. If robust processes and systems are working well then the civil defence response will support what is already underway, not override the community response.
The plan is developed by community champions and/ or representatives of stakeholder organisations such as local schools, businesses, Neighbourhood Support, Lions, Residents Associations and so on.
A working party is established with the goal of completing the planning process and maintaining the plan, while also building and strengthening relationships. Ownership of the plan remains with the community, represented by the stakeholder group.
It’s important to understand that this is a continuous process, that the plan is a living document that will need to be reviewed regularly, as opposed to just sitting on a bookshelf! Your Community Response team will need to meet regularly and discuss your response as well as how you can promote preparedness in the community.
For more information on how Emergency Management Bay of Plenty can support your community to develop a plan contact us on info@boprc.govt.nz
Find out if your community already has a Community Response Plan. If the answer is no, talk with your community leaders and establish a group to begin planning.
Community Guides are short information sheets developed by the Community Response Teams that outline the hazards in the area along with Flood or Tsunami evacuation maps. These maps also show the locations of nominated buildings within the community where information and support can be given during an emergency. Usually the Community Response Team develops this guide as a first step to engaging with the wider community to develop their response plan. Each household should have a copy of this guide.
The marae is central to the Māori way of life. It is the focal point for Māori who share relationships with one another as whānau, hapū, and iwi. It is central meeting place to discuss and debate matters of significance, to celebrate important occasions and also bid farewell to those who have passed away.
During an emergency, the marae can become a hub supporting the Māori community, and at the discretion of the Marae Committee, a place for members of the community to gather. In civil defence emergencies, marae can act as community led centres that can provide for immediate needs like shelter, overnight accommodation, catering facilities, ablutions and holistic support.
The Bay of Plenty Civil Defence and Emergency Management support marae in the region to develop Marae Preparedness Plans through workshops and meetings. These workshops and meetings:
There are a range of resources including a template and resources (also in Te Reo Māori) to support iwi to develop plans.
Download the Marae Emergency Preparedness Plan and work with your marae and the community and begin developing a plan.
If your iwi or runganga are interested in undertaking marae emergency preparedness planning, contact us at info@embop.govt.nz
Volunteers are a huge part of any emergency system. Here at Bay of Plenty Civil Defence, we utilise volunteers that are trained by us, we work closely with other volunteer organisations, and we coordinate spontaneous volunteers during a disaster.
Becoming part of a volunteer organisation when there is no current emergency is one of the best ways to help if you want to be involved during an emergency response.
If you want to help out, there are loads of options to suit what you're looking for, both with us and our partner agencies. Whether you want to help out on a regular basis or think you have some useful skills when disaster strikes, check out some of the links below.
There are loads of ways you can get involved before, during, and after an emergency. Check out our volunteering page to find something that suits you. See what's available- you might be surprised!
Disabilities
Protect your pet in a disaster - World Animal Protection pack
