By Derek Schlennstedt
Wayne Collins, Regional Coordinator for Emergency Support Teams has thanked the Emerald Men’s Shed after they generously donated a 33KVA generator.
The generator, which will be refurbished and retrofitted to a tandem trailer as a portable unit, will assist the Emerald Emergency Planning Group in providing emergency support following disasters and emergency events.
Mr Collins said the generator would be a boon to the group’s capacity to respond to emergency events.
“The Emerald Men’s shed is a support group for the emergency support team and they had to relocate when the new hub was being built, and the place they relocated to didn’t have power and they were given the generator to power their site.”
“Now they have a new generator, which will see them into the future, so they gave us the old one knowing that we needed one.”
The Emerald Emergency Planning Group is the umbrella body for significant recovery efforts in Emerald and surrounds.
Their role is to prepare for possible disaster and emergency events and ensure that a local response is ready so that the community is on track to be recovery ready.
“After a major emergency or disaster we go in and set up a temporary emergency support hub,” Mr Collins said.
“Quite often in a major disaster the power is off so this donation is quite significant as it means after a major emergency where the area has lost power for a reasonable amount of time, we can actually supply some portable power to get vital things like phones charged and lighting or a kitchen going.“
Mr Collins thanked the Emerald Men’s Shed for their generous donation, noting that without it, they would never had been able to fund one.
“The men’s shed in Emerald has been fantastic and they’ve supported us all the way through and they perform a really great and important service in helping people recover after a major disaster or emergency.”
