Civil Defence West Coast

About

This is the official facebook page for Civil Defence West Coast, the emergency management group for the West Coast region of New Zealand.

Story

Civil Defence West Coast is an entity created to encompass the Civil Defence functions previously the responsibility of the four Councils in the West Coast Region of New Zealand, and supported by Emergency Services and other agencies.

Civil Defence West Coast is made up of a regional Manager based at the West Coast Regional Council, three emergency management officers based at the District Councils and the Group Lifelines Coordinator. During emergency events this will scale to include emergency services, support agencies such as the New Zealand Red Cross, District Health Boards, the Salvation Army, the Ministry of Primary Industries, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and other agencies as needed.

During emergency events, the Emergency Operations Centres and Emergency Coordination Centres are staffed primarily by council employees, but also industry experts and trained community volunteers. Local Civil Defence Centres are mainly community volunteers.

Our core business can be summarized in the “4Rs” concept.
• Risk Reduction – Promote safe practices and encourage minimizing our exposure to risk.
• Readiness – Plan for emergency situations. Make our communities as prepared as possible.
• Response – Affect a response to a civil defence emergency.
• Recovery – Recover normality for our communities, businesses and environment as best as possible after an event.