Emergency plans
Planning for an emergency
Welwyn Hatfield is a safe place to live, but disasters and emergencies do happen from time to time. When they do, many different agencies will be involved in responding.
We plan our emergency response so we can co-ordinate our efforts and avoid confusion following an emergency incident.
Our emergency plans are based on an assessment of local risks.
Where to find information in an emergency
During an emergency, the latest information will be on our website, our Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Emergency Planning in Hertfordshire
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council works closely with other agencies involved in emergency planning issues as part of Hertfordshire Resilience, which is the Local Resilience Forum for Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire Resilience includes representatives from the 'blue light' emergency services, as well as local authorities, the National Health Service, government agencies voluntary organisations and transport and utility companies.
Our role in an emergency
We are responsible for:
- providing emergency shelter and re-housing
- safety of structures;
- environmental health issues
Our emergency plans
We have specialist teams to help with emergency planning:
- an internal resilience team is chaired by the Chief Executive which oversees emergency planning and business continuity issues
- a Risk and Resilience team who are responsible for emergency planning and business continuity
- a Crisis Support Team
We have an emergency plan to deal with a range of situations. It covers:
- how the plan will be activated
- roles and responsibilities
- welfare and communications
- reception centres and the incident control centre
- recovery from an incident.
It links tother multi-agency plans that are maintained by Hertfordshire Resilience.
We also have business continuity plans to help us to keep our key services running during an emergency. It may mean we have to reduce or suspend some non-key services so we can focus on dealing with the emergency.