Emergency Management

Council’s Municipal Emergency Management Plan (MEMP) is used during times of emergency.

Council manages municipal resources and co-ordinates support for our community to deal with the effects of an emergency. This includes responding to and recovering from emergencies, such as:

• Providing emergency relief to people affected by or responding to an emergency.
• Municipal help to agencies responding to and recovering from emergencies.
• Assessing the impact of an emergency.
• Recovery activities within our municipality, with the Department of Human Services.

So we can carry out these emergency management duties, Council has a Municipal Emergency Management Group. During an emergency, the group will meet to decide what level of activity is needed.

This group consists of:

• Municipal Emergency Resource Officer (MERO) (senior Council officer)
• Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM) (senior Council officer)
• Chief Executive Officer (or delegated senior officer/director)
• Municipal Emergency Response Coordinator (MERC) (senior Police officer)
• Control agency representative
• Other agency representatives as required

Neighbourhood Safer Places – Places of Last Resort

Council has designated the following Neighbourhood Safer Places:

• Robinvale – Recreation Reserve, Latje Rd, Robinvale
• Swan Hill – Showgrounds, Corner Stradbroke Avenue and McCallum St, Swan Hill

Neighbourhood Safer Places (NSPs) are a place of last resort when all other plans have failed.

They can provide some protection from direct flame and radiant heat during a fire but may still be subject to ember attack.

NSPs are NOT relief centres – there are limited facilities and no support or services are provided.

NSPs are NOT places to relocate to when leaving early.

After an emergency there are many support services available, including:

• Financial support
• Personal support
• Clean-up arrangements