A draft of Central Otago's emergency management plan has been released to the public ahead of community civil defence meetings later this month.
The plan, described by council emergency management officer Hamish Keith as "not a bible but a good guideline", sets out the "four r's" - reduction, readiness, response and recovery.
It details the area's "risk profile" in which it says the district is "vulnerable to a wide range of significant hazards comprising of natural, technological and biological processes, including earthquakes, floods, landslides, severe weather, rural fire, pandemics and infrastructure failures".
However, planning for those things was complicated by the region's geographical isolation, relatively dispersed population, high number of tourist and holiday home owners, age and fragility of water services and lack of cellphone coverage in some areas, among other factors.
Reduction initiatives already under way in the district include flood mitigation work, land stabilisation work in the Cromwell Gorge and the council's earthquake-prone building policy.
One of the big issues with the readiness component was the level of community awareness.
"The level of community awareness-preparedness and involvement with CDEM [civil defence emergency management] is almost non-existent," the plan states.
Response in any civil defence emergency would be co-ordinated by a central operations centre primarily staffed by council personnel, who would liaise with services such as the police, and fire and ambulance services.
Under this plan, recovery would begin almost immediately after an event and could involve parallel-response activities.
That recovery would not just be about restoring physical assets and providing welfare but also about social and economic aspects.
Mr Keith told the council some things in the plan could change once other local authorities in Otago had developed their plans.
Creating the plan was a requirement of the Otago civil defence emergency management plan, which was adopted last December.
