The aim of Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) is to ensure the safety of people, property and the environment.
We do this by
- identifying significant hazards in the community,
- determining community vulnerability to these hazards, and
- building community resilience to recover from significant events.
Civil Defence is a system of mobilising the full resources of the community to cope with disasters.
Emergency Management Southland
In Southland, Emergency Management Southland (EMS) is the organisation in charge when there is a civil defence emergency.
It is a stand-alone entity working on behalf of our Council as well as Southland District Council, Invercargill City Council and Environment Southland.
EMS has an Emergency Management Office and an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) located behind Environment Southland's offices, on the corner of Price Street and North Road, Invercargill.
We provide staff to EMS when there's an emergency. There are fulltime staff employed by EMS, led by a controller.
Sometimes we need to set up an Emergency Control Centre (ECC) if there's an emergency where we need to help manage locally, such as our floods in February 2020.
When is a civil defence emergency declared?
A civil defence emergency is declared, usually by the EMS chairman, when a disaster is so large that normal emergency services (police, fire and ambulance) cannot cope adequately and the safety of the public is at risk.
Civil Defence aims to prevent, reduce, or overcome any hazard or harm or loss to the public or property that may be associated with any emergency.
The controller assumes control of the response effort once a Civil Defence emergency is declared.
