Community prepares

By Lachlan Ellis

A Moorabool community has banded together at a recent event, to prepare for any future emergencies.

Over 100 people recently attended the Community Emergency Preparedness Expo in Korweinguboora to help build their resilience and preparedness.

The Expo provided the opportunity for locals to meet with first responders, explore emergency response vehicles up close, and see demonstrations of the latest mowing and mulching equipment to help the community prepare ahead of this year’s fire season.

It was organised by the newly formed Korweinguboora Emergency Group Inc (KEG Inc), developed through an Emergency Recovery Victoria funded Community-led Recovery Project, following the 2021/22 storm events.

Through this project, KEG Inc developed a Community Emergency Management Action Plan, based on feedback received from the local community. The plan highlights the importance of sharing information and creating connections to help the community become more resilient and better planned and prepared for future emergencies.

The Expo event was one of the actions of the plan as well as the development of a local community emergency resource flipchart, that was also launched at the Expo by Deputy Mayor Cr Ally Munari.

Cr Munari said it was fantastic to see something good come out of the major storms that hit the region in 2021.

“It was a wonderful event, organised by really passionate locals. The storms were such a traumatic time for a lot of locals, so for locals of Korweinguboora, Blakeville, Barkstead, Spargo Creek, that whole area, to form this committee supported by Council and a range of organisations, is fantastic,” she told the Moorabool News.

“It was lovely to see this small group of people that were so passionate about making something happen, bring their ideas to fruition. It was also great to see so many departments and emergency service personnel there to provide information, there were lots of talks on the day.”

Cr Munari said it’d be great to see the event run again in the future, and that the passion of everyone involved for the community really showed.

The Community Emergency Preparedness Expo was supported by the following agencies: Ambulance Victoria, CFA, CSIRO, Department of Energy Environment & Climate Action, Forest Fire Management Victoria, Hepburn Shire Council, Korweinguboora Recreation Reserve Committee of Management, Hodges Earthmoving, Moorabool Shire Council, NBN Australia, CitiPower and Powercor, Red Cross Australia, Stihl Shop Daylesford, St John Ambulance Victoria, Telstra, Victoria Police and VICSES.

For more information about KEG Inc, email [email protected] or follow them at www.facebook.com/korweingubooraemergencygroup.