By Jed Lanyon
One of the largest Victorian bushfire evacuation exercises took place in Powelltown on Saturday 19 October in preparation for the upcoming fire season.
An estimated 400 residents from Powelltown, Three Bridges and Gilderoy received emergency text messages on Friday night and Saturday morning simulating the information they would receive in times of an emergency.
A Victoria Police spokesperson told the Mail, “Despite the rain, the community really got involved. There were people attending the relief centre with dogs and cats, enacting what their plans would be on the day.”
“There were some lessons learnt by members of the community, some realised it takes much longer to leave than what they thought.”
On the morning of the evacuation, emergency management commissioner (EMV) Debra Abbott said, “Today we’ve got an emergency management exercise… It’s important not just for our emergency sector, but it’s also an exercise that helps our community enact their plans and put them into place.
“For some people they’ve already left, for other people they are also enacting their plans but working to their own plans.
“It’s important that we do learn lessons as we can always do this better.”
Victoria Police superintendent Nigel Howard stressed the importance of communication during the time of an emergency, whether it be informing neighbours about your fire plan and your plans to evacuate, as well as registering your arrival at a bushfire emergency shelter.
CFA chief officer Steven Warrington said, “We live in one of the worst bushfire prone areas in the state. If you get to the stage of an evacuation, it is the very last thing you do.
“Our experience is that trees fall on roads and can prevent people from evacuating.
“If you have enough warning then leave the day before or have a really solid plan… Remember you will not get someone knocking on your door.”
Earlier in the week Yarra Ranges Council passed an urgent motion to seek a community alert siren in Powelltown.
Council will lobby the state government about their support for the conversion of the CFA siren at Powelltown to a community alert siren.
O’Shannassy Ward councillor Jim Child said the Powelltown community had been trying to get the siren for years, where it could be used for a number of emergency situations.
“The Powelltown community identified the need for a siren years ago and have been trying to get the proposal off the ground formally for about three years.” Cr Child said.
“The community supports this project, all of our emergency services support this project and council supports this project… The time is right to take this request to the state government.”
Community members of Warburton are also making their own bushfire season preparations.
The Warburton Emergency Planning Group recently received a $5000 grant to establish a community emergency plan and produce a short film as part of the 10 year anniversary of Black Saturday.
The group is informing Warburton residents that their community action plan and map will be mailed to locals and could prove to be a useful tool for the upcoming fire season.
Kevin Bargar of the Warburton Emergency Planning Group said, “We are quite proud of this document and hope that is finds its way into all Warburton and East Warburton resident’s homes.
“Valuable phone numbers, web pages and information regarding fire danger risk, community fire refuges and neighbourhood bushfire places of last resort locations are included in a map of the area.”
The document will be sent to 3799 postcodes in mid-November.
