Municipal Emergency Management Plan

Under Section 20 of the Emergency Management Act 1986, each municipality is required to develop and maintain a municipal emergency management plan.

The three roles of municipal Councils in emergency management are:

to provide their own resources, including those not owned but under their control, for the management of emergencies; to plan for the use of all available emergency management resources for their municipality; and to involve and provide for the community in all emergency management processes. The City of Yarra accepts responsibility for the management of municipal resources and the co-ordination of community support to counter the effects of an emergency during both the response to and recovery from emergencies. This includes the management of: the provision of emergency relief to emergency service agencies and affected persons during the response phase; the provision of supplementary supplies (resources) to emergency service and relief agencies during response and recovery; municipal assistance to agencies during the response to and recovery from emergencies; the assessment of the impact of the emergency; and recovery activities within the municipality, in consultation with the Department of Human Services.

Municipal emergency management planning committee

In order to carry out these management functions, the City of Yarra has formed a Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee, (MEMPC), as required under Section 21(3) & (4) of the Emergency Management Act 1986. The function of this Committee is to formulate a Municipal Emergency Management Plan (MEMPlan) for the Council's consideration in relation to the prevention of, response to and the recovery from emergencies within the City of Yarra.

The following persons shall make up the City of Yarra MEMPC:

• Municipal Emergency Resource Officer (MERO)
• Deputy Municipal Emergency Resource Officers (2) positions
• Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM)
• Deputy Municipal Recovery Management (DMRM)

Other contributing members (external organisations)

• Municipal Emergency Response Coordinator (Victoria Police)
• Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board Representative
• Victoria State Emergency Service Representative
• Ambulance Service Victoria Representative
• Other representatives as required

Emergency incident and local incident response

There are two basic types of emergencies to which the City of Yarra must respond. These are:

Emergency ("DISPLAN") Response, the Municipal Emergency Management Plan (MEMPlan) becomes active at the request of the Police Emergency Response Coordinator who contacts the Council Municipal Emergency Resource Officer (MERO). The MERO will respond to directions and coordinate municipal resources requested by the Police Emergency Response Coordinator. In an emergency management incident, there is usually more than one response agency responding to the incident.

Local Incident Response is coordinated at a municipal level by the responding Council Officer. The responding officer may receive a request from an on-call officer from a Council area such as Building, Health or Engineering Services to provide physical resources or personnel at the scene of the local incident. The request usually comes from the coordinator of the response agency who is at the incident.

The responding on-call officer will attend to the request made. If further resources are required, the on-call officer has the authority to supply those resources and to activate the Municipal Emergency Management Plan.

Municipal authority

The Municipal Emergency Resource Officer is responsible for the coordination of municipal resources in responding to emergencies, and has full delegated powers to deploy and manage Council's resources during emergencies.

Responsibilities of the Municipal Emergency Resource Officer:

1. To be responsible for the coordination of municipal resources in responding to emergencies.
2. To establish and maintain an effective infrastructure of personnel whereby municipal resources can be assessed on a 24 hour basis.
3. To establish and maintain effective liaison with agencies within or servicing the Municipality and the Municipal Recovery Manager.
4. To maintain the Municipal Emergency Co-ordination Centre(s) at a level of preparedness to ensure prompt activation when necessary.
5. To facilitate the arrangement of a post emergency debrief as requested by the Municipal Emergency Response Coordinator.
6. To ensure procedures and systems are in place to monitor and record all expenditure by the municipality in relation to emergencies.

Activation of the MEMPlan (DISPlan procedures)

In order to establish and maintain an effective infrastructure of personnel whereby municipal resources can be assessed on a 24 hours basis, a "Duty MERO Call Out Roster" has been established whereby the MERO or a Deputy MERO is on call to respond to emergency incidents.

First point of contact

For emergency situations, the first point of contact in the City of Yarra is the Duty MERO.

During working hours:
the PABX operators will be aware of who is the MERO and who are the Deputy MEROs' and place the incoming call accordingly.

After hours:
Council's PABX (i.e. Ph: 9205 5555) is switched to Council's service provider for after hours telephone calls.

The Service Provider has a listing of mobiles, pagers and private telephone numbers to suit each particular emergency.

If the Duty MERO is required, the Service Provider will make the necessary initial contact.

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Further information

Access Yarra
Telephone 9205 5555
Email info@yarracity.vic.gov.au

Links

Within this site
Yarra City Council

External sites (Yarra City Council accepts no responsibility for the information or opinions contained within external sites)
Victoria Online

Information supplied by: Electronic communications & design officer - 9205 5214

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