Council is set to receive $30,000 funding through Local Government NSW (LG NSW) to develop a Disaster and Emergency Dashboard, The Mayor of Hawkesbury, Councillor Barry Calvert is delighted to announce.
Provided by LGNSW’s Increasing Resilience to Climate Change Grant Program, the project has been developed by Council’s Floodplain Risk Management Committee. The Committee is chaired by the Deputy Mayor Councillor, Mary Lyons Buckett and supported by Councillors Amanda Kotlash, Paul Rasmussen, Peter Reynolds, Danielle Wheeler and community representatives.
Once developed the Disaster and Emergency Dashboard will be part of Council’s suite of information services. It is also a key direction and strategy of the Hawkesbury Community Strategic Plan to ensure a shared responsibility for community safety and disaster management as well as provide local leadership.
“Once complete, the service will provide live updates on road conditions, weather warnings, fire incidents, power outages, flood alerts, bush fire alerts and school closures, all in one convenient location,” the Mayor said.
“Residents will also be able to sign up to Early Warning Networks to receive alerts for severe weather warnings directly.
“Obviously, this will be a great service for our community, and I can also add that our Customer Service staff are very excited at the prospect of this new service being up and ready, as it will be a great tool for them to stay up to date and to assist our community members too.”
The Disaster and Emergency Dashboard will provide residents with a single point of reference to keep up to date with vital information before, during and after a disaster or emergency events.
The dashboard, which can be bookmarked on a smart device, will be designed to be user-friendly, adaptable to different devices and readily available without the need for a subscription, log-in or app download.
Councillor Lyons-Buckett thanked all of the committee members for their support of the project.
“Use of the dashboard has the potential to avoid the need for people to visit multiple websites and social media pages to find out information during an emergency, as this information will be accessed directly from the dashboard.
“Council looks forward to delivering this Dashboard for use by the community, not only in times of disasters and emergencies, but also to help our community prepare and plan,” she said.
