Why plan for emergencies?
Emergencies happen. In the last few years, Scotland has
experienced severe winter weather, flooding, travel disruption,
fuel shortages, animal diseases, and a pandemic flu outbreak.
Challenges like these affect us all in going about our daily lives,
and every community has a different reason for wanting to plan to
get through them.
A recent report published by the think-tank DEMOS
explained the problem very well. The lives we lead are made
possible only by relying on very complex systems that depend on
each other to work properly. Imagine, for example the impact of a
single school closure. If parents can't go to work because they
need to look after their children at short notice this will have a
significant impact on the work that they would otherwise have been
doing. If all the schools inScotlandwere to close, over 360,000
primary school children alone need to be cared for.
The good news is that how communities organise themselves to
prepare for emergencies can make a big difference. This guide to
emergency planning for community groups is about how
communities can make that difference by coming together to support
each other.
The guide provides advice to community groups that want to help
their communities cope better in an emergency. It is written with
existing groups like community councils, residents associations or
neighbourhood watch groups in mind, but could be used by any
community organisation - or by a group of people in a community who
want to be more prepared.
Good practice example: A house fire broke out in
a rural community during a period of severe winter weather in 2011.
Community members knew not to try to tackle the fire, but they
played a vital role. While the fire service was on its way, they
were able to work in advance to make sure that the fire engine was
able to get to the scene, by clearing ice and snow from the access
road. A local farmer used his tractor to tow the fire-engine part
of the way to the building that was on fire.
Scotland is a relatively safe country, and it has excellent
organisations which help the public when an emergency happens.
These organisations, which are called 'emergency responders' in
this guide, take the lead in supporting communities in dealing with
emergencies.
They include what people think of as the 'emergency services':
police, fire and ambulance, but also other organisations like local
authorities and the NHS, as well as voluntary organisations like
mountain rescue teams and the British Red Cross.
These organisations come together as regional strategic
co-ordinating groups (SCGs), which enable them to prepare for
and respond to emergencies in a joined up way.
Voluntary sector groups regularly work alongside
the emergency responders. Both say that this works best where they
have an established relationship and don't have to start from
scratch when an emergency occurs. It helps that they know who to
talk to and have planned in advance what to do.
However, the emergency responders can't be everywhere at once.
They will always have to prioritise people in greatest need,
especially where lives are at risk.
Having a Community Emergency Plan doesn't mean that your group
should or could replace the emergency responders. It is important
to remember that you should never do anything which puts you or
anyone else in your community at risk.
At the heart of how communities get through emergencies is how
'resilient' they are - this means how well they can use their
strengths to:
- prepare for,
- respond to, and
- recover from emergencies.
More resilient communities:
- are aware of risks that may affect them and how vulnerable they
are to
them,
- use their existing skills, knowledge and resources to prepare
for, and
deal with, the consequences of emergencies, and
- work together to complement the work of the local
emergency
responders before, during and after an emergency.
A Community Emergency Plan is one way in which your group can
help your community become more resilient. It can help your
community cope until the emergency responders arrive, and help it
recover in the long term.
Past incidents have shown that people already support and help
each other during times of need. Simple activities like getting
together to clear snow and ice from paths, or offering a helping
hand to neighbours who might become vulnerable in an emergency can
make all the difference. This document sets out a step by step
guide, from getting started, to practising your Plan. However, it
is not an instruction manual that must be followed to the letter.
Carrying out any of the steps is a worthwhile achievement in
itself.
The Guide to Emergency Planning for
Community Groups is available to download as a pdf, which
contains examples of good practice. The Scottish Government is
open to feedback on its contents and will update it periodically.
If you have any comments or suggestions on how we could improve the
guide, please let us know.
Every day in Scotland thousands of people need
to attend hospital for life-saving treatments like dialysis. If ice
and snow caused a problem getting someone from their home to their
hospital transport, could your community get together to help?