Kurow is the first community in the Waitaki district to complete a response plan for civil defence.
Waitaki Civil Defence is aiming to have similar plans for towns and communities in the district in place over the next 10 years.
The community plans are an important step to ensuring communities such as Kurow can cope if isolated.
The plans are developed in consultation with the communities they will affect, then formally handed over to their individual response groups.
The Kurow plan, which took about a year to prepare, covers the township and surrounding area from Special School Rd at Otekaieke in the east to the Aviemore dam in the west and includes the island in the Waitaki River between the twin bridges on State Highway 82.
Hazards and emergencies posing the greatest threat to Kurow have been identified, along with how they will be handled.
The emergencies range from windstorms, fires, flooding, earthquakes, snowstorms and dam bursts, each prioritised in terms of the level of risk.
For example, flooding and urban fires are given a high risk.
The chance of any Waitaki River dams bursting has been awarded low probability, but ranked devastating in terms of effect on the area.
A toxic chemical spill or rural fire would also have serious implications.
The plan then goes on to outline alarm systems at local, regional, district and national levels, and points out some natural disasters offer no warning. One method in the Kurow plan for getting warnings and information out to the community has been to establish a telephone tree.
First, two members of the Kurow response group would be notified.
They would contact the other 11 members of the response group, who would then telephone street wardens.
Each street has identified one or more of its residents as a telephone contact to notify others in the street.
Other methods identified for warnings included using the town's fire siren, using sirens on emergency vehicles travelling around the area and public address systems on emergency vehicles.
Other methods, such as texting and alarms, are being investigated.
Emergencies have been allocated levels of response, ranging from local incidents which do not need a civil defence declaration and can be dealt with by emergency services through to a state of national emergency.
If contact can be established, in some instances the community will work with district civil defence in Oamaru.
But the aim is to ensure that if contact cannot be established or assistance is not immediate - for example, if a town is cut off by flooding - then the community has a plan in place.
Emergency, welfare and evacuation centres have been identified.
If, for any reason, these cannot be used at the time, emergency alternatives have also been identified.
Resources at each and how many they can accommodate has been logged.
Communication within the Kurow community and with other communities has been identified as a critical component, including making sure people are aware of the plan and what is in it before it is needed.
Waitaki emergency services manager Chris Raine said that, in communities without response plans yet, local civil defence responders would continue to operate.
"The long-term plan is to roll community response plans out across the district to cover all towns and communities in the Waitaki district," he said.
Response plans
• Kurow becomes the first community in Waitaki to complete an emergency response plan.
• Four emergency response plans a year proposed.
• When the plans are created, they will be used by the 100 civil defence volunteers in Waitaki.
• Plans will be prepared by communities, with consultation through public meetings and surveys.
• Plans will be prepared for all Waitaki's towns and communities, including Oamaru.
• Plans form the basis for quick reaction to emergencies at a local level.
