By Liz Millman
At the ‘Community Focus Fridays’ sessions being held every week at Olinda Community House, emergency Planning is the next item on the agenda from 10:30am until 12:00pm.
A wide range of visitors have been invited to join these sessions, which are enabling local people to share their stories of the storm last June which damaged 177 homes and brought trees down on local properties.
“It’s taking a long time to get any work at all done on these properties, although some demolition has happened, but many people just feel tied up with red tape, when dealing with the insurance companies and local planning regulations. However we appreciate that Yarra Ranges staff, staff from Parks Victoria and so many others have been helping up here in the Hills, and we are very grateful,” local resident and Secretary of the Hills Creative Alliance Liz Millman said.
“Now locally based groups are stepping up to help in this next stage of recovering as we ensure that everyone living in the Hills townships is as well prepared as they can, should another disaster happen again, and we especially want to ensure that folks who have moved up here in the past year, are aware of the need to be prepared,” Liz said.
Last week the group welcomed Linda Snell, Community Recovery Co-ordinator for Yarra Ranges Council, and colleagues from Parks Victoria, who gave updates on the progress made in recovery.
An update on the work of Parks Victoria can be found at: https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/news/2022/06/08/04/18/one-year-on-the-challenging-recovery-from-catastrophic-storms
Yarra Ranges Council has a dedicated site focusing on storm support – with a monthly update: https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/recovery/Community-and-wellbeing/Storm-Recovery-Newsletter and an updated emergency preparation booklet for households: file:///Users/lizmillman/Downloads/Emergency_Prepare_Booklet_2021 (1).pdf
Anglicare joined the Friday session a few weeks ago and now the group will be reviewing Anglicare’s Emergency Preparation information, to provide local information for each of the townships and also explore ways that local people can volunteer to support local services at times of need, as well as the recovery phase carries on.
For more information please contact Liz Millman: Secretary of the Hills Creative Alliance: lizmillman@yahoo.co.uk or phone 0412 970 050 – every one is welcome to join the Community Focus Friday sessions, to catch up and make new friends over a cuppa and cake.
