Our Community Emergency Hub volunteers recently undertook further training at the Community Centre which involved an exercise reenacting an emergency scenario. This enabled our team to get familiar with how the Hub would operate and what each role entails before we open it up to the wider community.
Next steps are to invite our community and community groups who would like to come on board as volunteers and join our team and undertake training, so we have a strong resource to draw on in times of emergency. If this is something you are interested in, please let us know.
More information
Below is some information on what a Community Hub is. You can also read more here on the Civil Defence Website.
What is the purpose of a Community Hub? In a disaster, official services will be stretched to the point where they must prioritise the most urgent call-outs. We will all have to pitch in and help each other.
When you have checked on your household and neighbours, you and your family can go to your local Community Emergency Hub to:
Ask for and offer help by sharing skills and resources among your community
Share and find information about what's happening in your suburb
Start organising the clean-up of your community
Be in the company of others facing a similar situation
What will I find at a Community Emergency Hub? The Hub is run by people like you in your local community without official assistance. Each Hub has a guide for how to coordinate the sharing of information, skills and resources that exist in your community.
There is a small amount of equipment, including a VHF radio in case the phone and internet networks aren't working. The radio will allow communities to communicate with the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) run by your local council.
There are no supplies, food, water or blankets stored at Hubs. Our communities are full of beds with blankets on them and pantries with food in them to get through the first week after an emergency. Your community can gather the things it needs at the time by working together.
How is a Community Emergency Hub run? Community members run a Hub without official assistance - it's essentially a place for neighbours to help each other in a coordinated way. Each Hub has a Hub Guide which explains how to organise an emergency response and describes the different roles needed.
WREMO works with communities to practise how they would respond to an earthquake and help the people they live nearest to get through even some of the most challenging issues.
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