Preparations for worst winter weather

23 October 2010, 07:20

Bedfordshire councils, emergency support organisations, residents and volunteers are seeing just how prepared the county would be - in the event of a devastating winter storm.

BLEVEC is the Bedfordshire and Luton Emergency Volunteers Executive Committee - and they'll be role-playing various scenarios today including the downing of a light aircraft, flooding, roofs off houses and other weather related disasters.

The exercise is to test just how ready volunteers, councils and emergency support organisations like the Red Cross - would work with each other, and the emergency services, in the event of severe weather events.

Bedford Hospital Volunteers, Midshires Search and Rescue, 4x4 Response Team, Service of Volunteer Riders, British Red Cross, WRVS, St John Ambulance, RAYNET, Salvation Army, Road Victims Trust, Samaritans, Victim Support, CHUMS, CRUSE, Rapid UK, Menter, RSPCA and approximately 250 local homes in the Chicksands area.

Emergency Planning Officer Mark Conway told heart the reason they're doing this is very simple "we'd be able to offer a faster more effective response and we'll be able to help people a lot quicker and a lot better and find out people's needs and serve them as best we can, if the worst was to happen.

The more we practise and test these scenarios in life-like situations, the better we'll be able to respond when something does go wrong".

Meanwhile the "What would you do if...?" campaign is running alongside this for all members of the public - which aims to help everybody living or working within Bedfordshire and Luton to get prepared and consider what they would do if faced with an emergency.

For more information on being an emergency volunteer - email volunteering@bllrf.org.uk or call 0300 300 4439.

For infomation on the "What would you do if...?" campaign, and how individuals can help protect themselves against an emergency situation, get an emergency kit and lots of additional preventative and preparatory information - visit www.whatwouldyoudoif.co.uk