In the lead up to the coming bushfire and storm season, Central Coast Council is urging all residents to take proactive steps to better prepare themselves, their families and their homes for emergencies.

Council are promoting Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Week, and the ‘Get Prepared’ app, as part of their ongoing emergency preparation and community resilience building ‘Get Ready Central Coast’ program.

Council’s Acting Director of Connected Communities, Phil Cantillon said that the ‘Get Prepared’ app is an important tool that can help build community resilience to emergencies.

“The Red Cross Get Prepared app has the ability to help build community capacity to prepare for disasters through the development of individual emergency plans,” Mr Cantillon said.

“It will help residents understand what resilience means to them by providing small step by step actions to enable each household to develop a plan tailored to their needs, leading to a stronger community better able to respond to and adapt more readily to shocks and stresses.”

Mayor Lisa Matthews said that Council encourages residents to download the ‘Get Prepared’ app and engage in their own emergency plan preparation.

“With Covid-19 restrictions, it is going to be more important than ever that individual households understand their vulnerability to emergencies and are best prepared for them,” Mayor Matthews said.

“The Red Cross Get Prepared app is not specific to any hazard, whether your property is vulnerable to fire, flood or storm, this app helps to guide in emergency planning and preparing, leading to faster responses to an emergency and quicker recovery.”

Download the Red Cross Get Prepared app at getprepared.app.link/central-coast