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During an Emergency - Advice to the Public
Should an emergency arise that involves leaving your home, it is likely that the police will oversee your evacuation. You will be directed to a North Hertfordshire Reception Centre managed and run by staff volunteers. You will be asked to provide some details such as your name and address and next of kin details so that they can be passed to a central database. The details are needed as your friends and relations may phone the ‘help-line’, normally given out on the television, to find out if you are safe. The help-line then matches your details with the enquiries received about you.
At the Reception Centre basic catering facilities will be available at first and, depending on how long you will need to stay, these may need to be upgraded. The facilities could include hot food, bedding, rooms for pets, welfare facilities, televisions, and most importantly the provision of information about your situation. North Hertfordshire District Council will provide these facilities for as long as required to ensure your safety.
During An Emergency
During a major incident the Hertfordshire Constabulary (police) will normally take the lead in co-ordinating the emergency response. This will involve liaison with all the organisations responding to the incident. A strategic command centre (known as Gold) may be established to oversee the medium and long term strategic priorities of the incident. A Site Liaison Officer from the main responders will almost certainly meet adjacent to the incident at the Silver Command point to ensure the incident site itself has the available resources and equipment it requires to adequately respond.
It will be in your interest to take the advice of the Police and follow their instructions.
North Hertfordshire District Council will if necessary establish a co-ordination centre to manage its response to the incident. The co-ordination centre will be open for as long as is required, which may be some weeks or months, after the emergency response to the incident has finished. Further details on the co-ordination centre can be found in Council Role in an Emergency.
North Hertfordshire District Council will not provide information to the public or media regarding the incident but will direct all enquiries to the Police Press Office.
If you are asked to leave your home, you may not have time to prepare for the evacuation. In the first instance you may need to leave pets, valuables and medication behind. At first the reception centre you are asked to go to may not be fully established and therefore you may need to be patient. Depending on how long you will be required to stay at the centre, North Hertfordshire District Council will provide improved facilities, which could include, sleeping facilities, appropriate hot food etc. At first it will be a very stressful environment, therefore, you will be asked to ensure you are courteous to our staff and other evacuees. Any anti-social behaviour may result in being asked to leave the centre by the police.
We will endeavour to provide as much information as we can in appropriate forms. However, it is very likely that information at first will be very sketchy and unconfirmed. We will therefore only provide accurate information when we receive it. This we recognise may be a source of frustration but we feel is better than speculation.
After An Emergency
After the blue light services have initially dealt with the major incident, responsibility for managing the incident (depending on the type of incident) may transfer from the Police to the Local Authority.
The role of the Local Authority post-incident is basically to ‘restore normality’, this may involve individuals, the community or businesses getting back to how they were before the major incident occurred. This process may take days, months or even years depending on the seriousness and extent of the incident. North Hertfordshire District Council will also take responsibility for media, public and local briefings during the recovery stage of the incident in consultation with Hertfordshire County Council.