Houghton Valley Email Newsletter
16 March, 2011
Civil Defence: due to the considerable response the HV School hall has been booked for a public meeting on Wednesday March 23 at 7 pm (the school is very kindly letting us use the hall free of charge). John and/or Sandy from Cave Rd will facilitate the meeting. Ricky from Civil Defence has been invited to talk and answer questions. Locals have also suggested others such as a geologist, a fireman and someone who has been helping out in Christchurch. If you know someone you think should be invited, let me know. Early next week an email will be sent out confirming the program for the night. Please tell your neighbours.
Barry Schon (principal of HV School) clarified the schools position in the 24 February newsletter, titled:
“Our School is a Civil defence Centre. What does this Mean?
It’s my understanding that the fact that our school is a ‘Civil Defence Post’ means that there is a radio here that local Civil Defence people will come and use to help monitor any disaster – in the event of a disaster they will have local volunteers who will head to the school, if they are able to. The school itself is therefore not set up to look after big groups of people, although if people had nowhere to go we would of course do our best to look after them. After an emergency we aim to get children back to their families asap, so that we can go to our own families, and we have a system set up for this, based on the emergency contact details we have for each child.”
Christine from Cave Rd provided this emergency checklist:
- Assume you’ll need 2 week’s supply to be comfortable;
- Assume you’ll need a toilet in the garden, so a drum with a toilet seat is good;
- Drinking water: 2 x 35 gallon header tanks would be good. 40 – 50 gallons of safe water for general use; 10 litres just drinking water;
- For a shower you can get battery operated camping showers, or Jerry up a solar shower on a hook in the shower. Wet wipes would be better than nothing. Antibacterial wet wipes are great and for hands. Big problem is food hygiene with no water to wash hands and unclean water in the tap;
- Insist on work premises that meet the code;
- Extra SIM cards – different cell towers get knocked down;
- Real nice to have: a generator, 70 gallons drinkable water, temporary shower, perhaps a tent, a bike/motorbike;
- Store nothing above shoulder height unless the doors lock closed. Don’t have any cabinets that can fall across doorways;
- Have a decent torch, jacket, boots, belt for trousers because you lose weight!
- Baking soda is an excellent deodorant;
- Camera to photograph stuff before cleaning up or throwing away;
- Important documents scanned and stored out of town or online;
- All important numbers recorded and backed up. Squeegee that will scrape into a dust shovel for cleaning up smashed food, Plastic shovel and brush;
- Flattened cardboard boxes to initially collect stuff up;
- Bleach for disinfectant;
- Soap, towels;
- 4 or 5 rolls paper towels;
- Flatbreads – last better than normal bread;
- Tins enough for 5 days;
- Pencil and paper;
- Transistor and batteries;
- Dolphin torch with good battery;
- Garden gloves to pick up glass;
- Really good quality duct tape;
- Insulation tape;
- Felt pen to leave instructions;
- Hand sanitiser 500 – 1000 mls;
- Pets go missing – train them beforehand by blowing a whistle or ringing a bell once a day. Microchip them and register them;
- Some heavy clear plastic to put over broken windows;
- Store emergency kit where it will be accessible if the house collapses. Powdered milk and easy to make jug;
- Tarpaulin.
Alice Kreb Lodge: Yesterday a meeting was held at the lodge between the WCC and lodge trustees to sort out the lease. The WCC has agreed to survey the footprint of the building and create a lease agreement that will secure its future. In the photo below are Amber, Steve and Dejan from WCC with Brenda.
Houghton valley Community garden: Locals relaxing in the garden on Sunday.
By the way, check out Houghton Bay Community on our Facebook Page for more photos.