Neighbourhood training

Learning doesn't stop with graduating from school. Every day, in small and large ways, we are constantly learning new things. Yesterday, I was at an Emergency Management Arrangements course.

An interesting course that brought home what our neighbourhoods have become. Where once communities would be grateful for help during flood, fire, tempest from the local authorities, now it's more a comment of 'where the hell we're you?'

How have we let our neighbourhood communities become so materialistic and selfish that they feel they can demand help whenever an individual needs it? What happened to community spirit during times of strife?

Sure, neighbourhoods have a right to expect help, but many people are a bit lackadaisical about their own safety. Fire coming? Clean your gutters, prepare your house, prepare for evacuation or prepare to fight. Flood coming? Sandbag your house, prepare to evacuate or prepare to paddle. Tempest? A little more difficult, but batten down the hatches, prepare to evacuate or prepare for a torrid time.

Once you've done your bit, look around at your neighbours. Does the elderly lady across the road have help? Is the house next door vacant? Is there something you can do?

Emergency staff have enough problems without racing around neighbourhoods distributing advice. There is a constant shortage of emergency personnel as is. Do something for your neighbourhood; don't wait until it is too late, don't wait to help.

Gulfport, USA managed on their own after being flattened. They picked themselves up and got on with the job.

If you're going to scream, shout and stamp your tiny foot when emergency staff turn up, make damn sure you did all you could in the first place to mitigate the damage. Make damn sure you helped your fellow neighbours. Who knows, maybe it will make for a closer knit community with everyone pitching in and helping out.

Now that I have the basics down, I'm going to take it further and get more training.

With the fire season just starting and drought conditions still prevalent, I suspect I'm in for a busy summer. Hopefully, I'll get thanks for the help, rather than pissy comments at having the gall to be fighting a fire when I could have been at the beck and call of one person.