North Canterbury Gets Ready

Welcome to Gets Ready, your easy tool for a safer, more connected and prepared community.

 

The past few years here in New Zealand have shown us it’s more important than ever to stay prepared for possible disasters, whether it’s a large-scale earthquakes, water contamination, wild weather, pandemics, flooding or dangerous fires nearby.

This modern era of technology allows us to receive regional warnings through emergency mobile alerts, and on occasion through online news websites for large-scale events. However, this does not facilitate immediate, neighbourhood-specific emergency warnings for our local community, particularly for smaller events such as crime, weather warnings and nearby incidents. Further, this does not cover what is needed in the ongoing recovery phase, immediately after a large scale events. These require a resilient and connected community, which Gets Ready enables.

Gets Ready is a communication tool which enables targeted notifications and alerts, as well as creating a database of those who need assistance (for example elderly, those with mobility issues, and those who need electricity to survive with life support machines). The Gets Ready system also enables neighbourhood networking, so those with special skill sets can help their local community look after each other during an emergency, as well as allowing community response teams to take action where possible.

 

How it works:

  1. Find your local Gets Ready region here.
  2. Sign up with your details and any special requirements or needs, or alternatively with any assistance you’d be willing to provide in an emergency.
  3. You’re be added to your local Gets Ready system! You’ll now receive emergency alerts for your area or community information, or be contacted if your community needs assistance.

 

Your privacy is important to us, and we only share the information you want shared with coordinators in the event of an emergency. You can read our privacy policy here.

If you’d like to enquire about getting your local community or council district registered with Gets Ready, click here.

We also have a full list of frequently asked questions here, which may provide further information for you.

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, please contact us, and a real person will be in touch as soon as they can!

Here’s what Douglas Marshall, Local Civil Defence Controller and Principal Rural Fire Officer for Selwyn District has to say about their experience of the Gets Ready system-

‘Selwyn District Council are fully supportive of this software initiative. It is an excellent product for community groups to support their interaction with a council’s Emergency Operations Centre. It is also a great way of building community resilience. During recent fire events, we were able to promptly alert the communities in our District at risk from the fire and advise them of safety actions to take. During flood and extreme wind events, the software allows our community response teams to capture their community issues and either resolve themselves or forward to us at EOC via the Selwyn Gets Ready web site. The software also allows for community contact information to be captured which means that we can also keep communities informed via agreed protocols about other community issues’.

A contact from Castle Hill area of Selwyn district provides a community perspective on the use of Gets Ready-

‘It’s made it easy for us as a community to be fully prepared for any CD emergency situation that may affect our village and to implement a community response team with effective procedures. We now have a full database of the needs, resources and skills of the families in the village which enables us to communicate with residents quickly and efficiently should the need arise. It has brought the community closer together, without being intrusive, and raised the awareness of residents to be prepared. It also enables fast, efficient communication with Selwyn Council if needed. A must do for any community.’