This week, Mackenzie District Council along with many Councils around the country ‘activated’ their Civil Defence ‘EOC’ to deal with the weather event. But what does that mean?
Essentially a group of Council staff and other experts gather to pool information and resources to manage the work that needs to be done in the best way possible. We call this ‘activation’. The room where we meet and operate out of is called an EOC ‘Emergency Operations Centre’.
There is usually a wide range of experiences and expertise in an EOC, and this week we had the full range – Bernie Haar is a veteran with 51 years’ experience working for local councils and managing emergency situations. Isaac Ryall is an intern working at Council during school holidays to support our IT department and this was his first experience of helping with a Civil Defence event.
Isaac, who made sure all the technology was working said, ‘this was a really interesting learning experience and I enjoyed seeing how everything came together.’
Bernie Haar said ‘It is at times like this that people look to their Council for information and it is always a pleasure to be able to work with Council staff and other agencies to provide support and coordination of response for the welfare of our communities.’