Thursday 14 March 2013
The Emergency Services and States Departments have worked in close partnership over the past few days in responding to the challenges posed by the severe weather conditions.
Multi-agency planning work ahead of the cold weather conditions was put into practice and strongly tested by the combination of two significant weather events - the high winds and heavy snow.
By working together, all agencies believe that their response to the events of recent days has been timely, well-planned and all decisions taken have been based on the most up to date information available at the time. Daily update meetings and continual sharing of information between all agencies have been essential in achieving a successful response to the unprecedented March weather. There have been no serious casualties as a result of the conditions.
The local media has played a vital role in ensuring that the community has been kept up to date with what was often a rapidly changing situation.
The States Emergency Planning Officer, Catherine Veron says: 'The Public Services Department (States Works) has taken the lead on the severe weather planning and you are probably aware of States Works snow and ice clearance plan which sets out how alerts are given for snow and ice conditions, which roads will be prioritised for clearance with the various methods available and how the different responding agencies will communicate both internally and with the public.
'Education and Health and Social Services Department have separate response arrangements in place and of course the emergency services have procedures to ensure they can continue to operate in snowy conditions.
'The Home Department/emergency planning role is to ensure that these multi agency meetings are routinely held before the start of each winter to ensure that plans are integrated and up to date.'
'I will be arranging for a multi agency review in due course which will look at how effective the response was and if there are any learning outcomes which we can build upon for similar events in the future,' said Mrs Veron.
