Bid to put emergency

Rodney Local Board is looking at drawing up a comprehensive regional map to show how “emergencyready” local communities are in the case of future extreme weather events.

The idea came from Warkworth member Ivan Wagstaff during a board workshop on August 2, when emergency management and resilience was under discussion with Auckland Council’s community broker for Rodney, Sue Dodds.

Wagstaff said a central map showing known levels of potential hazard or preparedness would be helpful for staff and the wider community.

“I think it would mean a lot to the community if they could walk into the local board offices and see a map that recognises their community and their current level of preparedness,” he said.

“If there were another emergency this afternoon, we could see straight away ‘these are the areas that will need help’.”

Dodds said that although council had set up a recovery office and such activity was the responsibility of Auckland Emergency Management (AEM), neither had the scope or resources to carry it out at present, whereas the local board had budgeted $25,000 for emergency response, so it was something that it could do, and she would set the process in motion.

She added that the eastern Rodney area already had an advantage, in the form of Neighbourhood Support coordinator Sue Robertson, who had a comprehensive network of local emergency response contacts and groups, and who worked closely with AEM.