Find out more about Community Resilience, and sign-up as a Street Rep at our Drop-in evening on Wednesday 18th June, in Southwell Library.
Street Reps will be a key strength in supporting the Community Emergency Plan to help prepare ourselves and our neighbours for an emergency in our immediate vicinity.
Street Reps will be allocated an area/cluster of houses in their street – probably a maximum of 10,
Hopefully there will be 3 or 4 Street Reps per area to cover for people at work, illness, holidays etc.
We also hope that people living in ‘safe’ areas will take on this role to be deployed to support those whose properties are at risk.
Street Reps (who may also be a Flood Warden or Road Closure Warden) will be involved at the stage when severe weather is forecast but before an actual emergency is declared.
NB. Flood Wardens and Road Closure Wardens only become ‘operational’ when the pre-determined triggers are met.
In preparation for their role, a Street Rep will
- first and foremost, make contact with all the people in their ‘cluster’ – about 10 houses and exchange contact details.
- during 1) establish who are the vulnerable people and buildings in your ‘cluster’.
- help and encourage people to prepare their own Personal Emergency Plan and obtain appropriate Property Level Protection
- register to receive flood alerts and weather warnings which can be one way to trigger a flood plan and start your activities as a community volunteer. Other key Forum members will receive up to date information from EA and check the river monitors.
- be aware of vulnerable places in the allocated area which may impact on the risk of flooding and reporting (and encouraging your neighbours to report) any blockages, debris etc.
When severe weather is forecast, Street Reps will
- communicate with each other to discuss the possible impact of the weather,
- examine the vulnerable places that might aggravate flooding
- continue to monitor the effect of the weather, including during the night.
If they consider that people need to start preparing for an incident, they should contact the rest of the people in the cluster and suggest they put their Personal Emergency Plan into action.
