Preparing for emergencies

Wild weather has hit New Zealand hard this year, with homes, farms, and businesses destroyed or damaged by floods and landslides. 

Communities have lost power, phone, internet, and other essential services, in some cases for weeks. In Waitaki we’ve experienced communities being cut off by weather events. It’s made all of us aware that we need to be better prepared, especially if climate change means events like this will happen more often and be more intense.

So, we’ve added $100,000 to this year’s budget to support us making our district more resilient to events. We’ll work with communities to decide how this would be spent but it could include protecting infrastructure, investing in communications or ensuring community halls can operate as support centres.

Cost: $100,000
Rates impact: No rates impact 2023-24 as loan funded

Feedback on the 2023-24 Annual Plan has now closed. We asked:

Do you support Council investing in tools to ensure community readiness in an emergency or severe weather event?