

Gets Ready is recognised by Civil Defence - it received an innovation award from the Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management in 2016.
It is-
- a purpose built web system where residents can securely record their contact details and any special needs, resources and skills they want to share, to help their local community look after each other in an emergency.
- the tool your Council could use if your area was part of a Gets Ready system. Gets Ready is used to share emergency warnings. These may include wind, snow, fire warnings, water quality warnings and fire rules and other messages with members. They arrive as email and / or texts. Those warnings let you share the information with those who are not on email or text, but are part of your neighbourhood.
- a system that has been built with Neighbourhood Support and Civil Defence groups in mind.
- used by Christchurch (7,000 households), Selwyn District (7,500 households), Te Awamutu (3,000 households) and North Canterbury (2,000 households).
- a set of tools. A key tool is the Situation Report - allowing key members of Civil Defence/Neighbourhood Support groups to send information to appropriate authorities. Photos and structured information in a Situation Report keep emergency services informed.
- ready to roll out across New Zealand. We just need some sponsorship.
It is maintained by residents, for residents and you can be involved. Join in your local system, and talk with your local Gets Ready contacts.
The Selwyn District, in Canterbury has (April 2017) about 7,500 members and here is what the Civil Defence Controller has to say about their use of Gets Ready-
'Selwyn District Council are fully supportive of this software initiative. It is an excellent product for community groups to support their interaction with a Council’s Emergency Operations Centre. It is also a great way of building community resilience. During recent fire events, we were able to promptly alert the communities in our District at risk from the fire and advise them of safety actions to take. During flood and extreme wind events, the software allows our community response teams to capture their community issues and either resolve themselves or forward to us at EOC via the Selwyn Gets Ready web site. The software also allows for community contact information to be captured which means that we can also keep communities informed via agreed protocols about other community issues’


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