Western Bay resilience adviser offering monthly advice at library

Western Bay of Plenty District Council's resilience adviser Jo Lynskey. Photo / Supplied

Never has the message ''be prepared'' been more apt than it is now.

Close to two years of worldwide pandemic, Tonga's recent volcanic eruption and tsunami, and large-swell warnings have brought into sharp focus the need to plan for emergencies.

Jo Lynskey is Western Bay of Plenty District Council's resilience adviser and says part of her role is ''public education and making sure the community is as resilient as they can be when they face an emergency''.

''Generally, we are talking about natural disasters, but as we have realised recently, we have things like pandemics and it could be something like utility outages.''

From next week Jo will be at Te Puke Library on the third Thursday of the month between 10am until noon to provide advice on how individuals and families can prepare themselves and their households.

''It could be things like giving them some useful tips about how they could store water, what they would do if their power was out, some things they should be thinking about or things they might not have talked about like community connectedness.''

Jo has resources available for people to take away.

''Then if they find they go away and start thinking about bit of a household plan and have a few questions, they can always come back the following month, or they'll have my contact details.''

People who might have specific needs are also welcome to talk to Jo about plans they can put in place.

She says there are many and varied scenarios, from a major traffic accident preventing people getting into or out of the area to power or internet outages.

Jo says the best way to be prepared is to have a plan.

''If you have a plan of what to do if your power is out, for example, it doesn't really matter if your power is out because of an earthquake or volcanic eruption - the actual cause of it isn't what I want to talk about too much, it's about the impacts of that and they will be the same .''

Jo will also have an example of a Covid care pack people can follow to put their own together.

''It's a simple box and will give them an idea of how much things will cost if they bought the items from the supermarket. They're not fancy, expensive things, they are things you can throw one a week into your trolley.''