Are You Emergency Ready?

There’s now a Climate Resilience Plan for Toronto to Teralba (T2T)

The Teralba to Toronto (T2T) Climate Resilience Plan is now available for review and feedback. Submissions can be made via Shape Lake Mac until 31 July 2025. 

Covering nine lakeside suburbs from Teralba to Toronto, the plan sets out how our community can build resilience by proactively preparing for, and adapting to, current and future climate-related hazards. These include familiar risks like bushfires, flooding and rising lake levels, as well as the growing impacts of heatwaves, urban heat and severe storms. The plan is structured around five themes.

Did the recent east coast low trigger any anxiety in your household? Do high winds and high tides make you wonder if you’re prepared and what can you do? Are you concerned about foreshore erosion or local flooding?

In early July a community workshop was held at The Hub where Council’s Climate team introduced the Teralba to Toronto Climate Resilience Plan and the Red Cross crew delivered an Emergency ‘RediPlan’ session exploring the contents of the guide ‘Emergencies Happen: Protect what matters’.

The RediPlan is a must read & do document offering practical tools to help households prepare for floods, storms, heatwaves and more. Being prepared for a climate emergency not only reduces the immediate stress but also greatly assists in recovery. The Red Cross’s experience is “The ‘what ifs’ hurt less afterwards when you’ve got a plan.”

With 111 years of experience supporting communities, the Red Cross knows that having a current emergency plan can make all the difference. Emergencies often strike fast. Knowing what to do, and who is doing it, can turn chaos into calm.

The Get Prepared app and downloadable RediPlan offer a simple start. Having a plan for your family household and other significant people in your life can take a lot of pressure off when it counts.

Knowing the emergency plans for organisations that care for your loved ones is also important. Where would they be evacuated to in an emergency? The Blue Mountains fires had parents in a panic as they got gridlocked for 3 hours trying to return home, not knowing where their kids were, and if they were safe.

Having an emergency grab-and-go bag in these situations can make all the difference in a crisis and in recovery. The Red Cross’s ‘Get Packing’ guide says there are two types of items to consider:

Survival items- things that will help if you have to evacuate your home quickly or if you have to stay in place without essential services. Items include light (torch & batteries), water, food, battery-operated radio, medications, phone charger, pet essentials, clothing, First Aid kit, toiletries, cash, hard copies of important phone numbers and ID.

Recovery items – things that will help limit disruption to your life after the emergency has passed e.g. key documents, insurance, ID, photos of memories and valuables (on a USB or in hard copy), your RediPlan.

When faced with 30 seconds to evacuate from your home your decision making is often not functioning optimally. The Red Cross team provided some anecdotes to drive home the importance of being prepared; the newlyweds response to having to evacuate as the Blue Mountains fires approached…wife was home, hubby was at work, she grabbed her wedding dress and a hair straightener, these were the most important things in the moment. The mum of four who grabbed two bananas and an electrical cord, it looked useful. Having a Grab & Go bag packed, having thought through your responses means you know you’re doing what you need to do.

The workshop also emphasised that evacuation centres are a last resort—like a life raft. It’s better to identify a meeting place, plan three ways to get there, and share this with your family or carers. Think about what the needs of your family and friends are, how your pets will cope or be transported, and what support networks you can rely on.

Neighbourly connections also matter. In most cases, it’s your neighbours who will be first on the scene—not emergency services. Strengthening our local networks now can save lives later. The RediPlan includes helpful tools like ‘Connecting to the Social Grid’ cards to start these connection conversations.

“Besides being fulfilling in many other ways, being a part of a community will help you in an emergency”

The importance of Apps was highlighted too. Resources like the “Hazards Near Me NSW” app, ABC Emergency (radio and Listen App), Live Traffic NSW, and the Bureau of Meteorology are excellent to stay informed, before, during, and after a disaster.

The CPPA is exploring how to support our community in times of need. Making the hall available in an emergency, fostering social connections, and ensuring our local environment can recover are all priorities.

Together, we can build a safer, stronger, more connected and climate-ready community.