It's Get Ready Week!
This year the theme for Get Ready Week is Prepared Kids. We know that when kids are involved in preparing for emergencies and learning about natural hazards, they encourage their families to be more prepared and play a more active role in responding to and recovering from emergencies.
As part of Get Ready Week 2016, we are launching our redeveloped schools resource What’s the Plan, encouraging schools to update their emergency preparedness plans and use the new resource to build resilience as a life skill for their students.
Here are our top tips for Prepared Kids
1. Give the school or day care a list of three people who can pick the kids up if you can’t get there.
2. Talk to your kids in an honest (but not scary) way about what might happen in an emergency, what you can do to keep safe, and what your plan is for if you can’t get home. The more involved they are, the less scared they will be if an emergency does happen.
3. Make a plan with your kids. Sit down together and talk about the things you need every day and work out what you would do if you didn’t have them. Grab a piece of paper and write down what you agree, who you need to contact and things you need to do to get ready.
4. Get your kids involved in getting supplies and checking them regularly. In an emergency you could be stuck at home for three
days or more. You probably have most of these things already, and you don’t have to have them all in one place, but you might have to find them in a hurry and/or in the dark.
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What's your favourite recipe for courgettes?
Kia ora neighbours. If you've got a family recipe for courgettes, we'd love to see it and maybe publish it in our magazine. Send your recipe to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, and if we use it in the mag, you will receive a free copy of our January 2025 issue.
Amberley’s new coastal defence delayed
By David Hill, Local Democracy Reporter
Efforts to protect a Canterbury beach community from the sea have been delayed a month, as resource conditions are met.
Hurunui District Council chief executive Hamish Dobbie last month said work to build a $750,000 coastal bund to protect the Amberley Beach village would be completed before Christmas.
But with the festive season fast approaching, the start date has been postponed until January.
Council staff, the Amberley Beach Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Community Association and contractor Ready Mix Concrete are working to meet consent conditions from Environment Canterbury.
Once work begins, it will take about a month to complete, Mr Dobbie said.
‘‘Given the amount of time the work will take, it was felt it was better to delay the project rather than start the work and then stop work for two weeks over Christmas.’’
A bund is a type of embankment which protects against the sea.
While the residents’ association looks forward to the work being completed, committee member John Manson rejected suggestions the rising sea level was the problem.
His biggest fear was the increased risk of severe storms leading to six to seven metre waves, due to climate change.
‘‘There is a sense of urgency because we have had a three to four year calm period.
‘‘The last series of major storms we experienced was during 2020-21.’’
The new bund will be larger than the existing embankment and will be built into the sand to make it more resilient in a storm, Manson said.
It is being built up to a culvert at a lagoon to the north of the village.
But the residents’ association would like it built a further 180m to the north to prevent stormy seas causing the lagoon to overflow, which has been allowed in the consent.
Councillor Vanessa McPherson said she is hopeful the council will look at extending the bund, once initial work is completed.
‘‘This is one of the most proactive communities I have been involved with and you can see it with what the residents are achieving.
‘‘It is such a beautiful place. I love this beach. It has got its own personality. It is wild and it is emotional.’’
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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