Ku-ring-gai Council in Sydney has launched a new online tool to help residents face extreme weather events.
The Climate Wise Communities website – launched in December – poses a series of questions to form a tailored picture of residents’ personal and property circumstances in a disaster.
The website also enables users to ‘Ask an expert’, directly linking them with members of the Local Emergency Management Committee (LEMC) who can answer specific questions.
People can also become a ‘Local Community Leader’ and engage neighbours in a community plan for preparedness.
According to staff, the idea behind the website is to get people to focus on what they really need to do ahead of a potential disaster, rather than during it.
Focusing on preparedness, the website has information about specific location risks, shared responsibility within neighbourhoods and investing wisely in preparing your property.
The website is aimed at residents living not just in Ku-ring-gai, but also elsewhere in northern Sydney.
The Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service have been actively assisting Council to put the site together.
It’s another tool in the Climate Wise Communities public engagement program, which Council initiated to help its local population deal more effectively with climate change.
The program also delivers workshops for residents to build their disaster resilience in the face of bushfire, storms, floods and heatwaves.
It is hoped the website framework will be adopted by other councils in NSW to develop a networked digital community engaged in an ongoing conversation around disaster resilience.
