1: Make a Plan
Emergencies can happen at any time and can have a big effect on your life, business and family. Making a plan helps you to think clearly, have a greater sense of control and make better decisions when an emergency occurs.
The most common emergencies in Tasmania are bushfire, flood and storm, but they are not the only emergency that could affect you. Here are some links to additional resources that can help you prepare:
- Create a Bushfire Plan online (Tasmania Fire Service)
- Be ready for storms and floods (Tas SES)
- Create your Emergency RediPlan (Red Cross)
- Know your Hazards (TasALERT)
- Protect your Business with the Emergency Preparation Toolkit (Business Tasmania)
- Protect your Farm with a Flood Readiness Plan (Tas SES)
2: Prepare an Emergency Kit
In an emergency you often don’t have time to think, let alone pack. By packing an emergency survival kit in advance, you can save yourself a lot of time and stress. Here are some additional resources that can help you prepare:
3: Get your paperwork in order
Getting organised will reduce stress and save you precious time as you recover. There are many important documents which can be hard to replace and will make life easier to recover if you have them. Also, there may be sentimental documents and keepsakes that you could create a list or map for easy collection if you had to evacuate. Lastly, making sure you have the appropriate level of insurance is important as well. Here are some additional resources that can help you prepare:
- Get organised tips from the Australian Red Cross
- Insurance Checkup tool from TasALERT
- How to prepare and stay connected during natural disaster – Telstra
4: Prepare your property
Know the potential risks to your property and get prepared to help reduce the risk of damage. RiskReady has been developed by TasALERT with the aim of improving community resilience to these natural hazards by providing access to property-specific natural hazard information in a simple, understandable format.
Flood: Make sure your drains, gutters and downpipes are clear, maintain roofs and fences, secure objects that are likely to float or move and cause damage, tie down trampolines, check storage of hazardous materials. Be prepared with this flood preparation advice the SES.
Bushfire: There are 8 important aspects to preparing your property for bushfire: Defendable space, vegetation management and landscaping, water supply, driveway access, building improvements, maintenance activities, awareness of your personal capacity and potential hazards. To learn more about protecting your property from bushfire see this Bushfire Ready Property Preparation Checklist from the Tasmanian Fire Service. You can also do a review of your property for bushfire resilience using the Resilience Ratings app.
5: Get connected
Connected communities are more resilient and much more likely help each other in an emergency and during the recovery journey after an event. The Australian Red Cross have some advice for growing your community. You may also consider becoming a Bushfire-Ready Neighbourhood if you live in a high-risk area. Bushfire-Ready Neighbourhood’s are formed when small groups of people living in high-risk bushfire areas take responsibility for their own safety and work together to devise plans and actions to suit their lifestyle, environment and community.