Preparing your community for an emergency
Why plan
Our day-to-day lives go smoothly if all the interconnected systems involved work properly but it only takes one to go wrong to throw things into chaos.
For instance, if all the schools in South Lanarkshire were to close because of snow, almost 25,000 primary school children would need to be looked after. This would have a knock-on effect on businesses and services in the area as many parents would have to take time of work, including Council and NHS front line staff, two of South Lanarkshire's biggest employers.
Scotland is a relatively safe country and there are emergency planning groups, split into police regions. South Lanarkshire is covered by the West of Scotland Resilience Partnership which has representatives from the emergency services, councils, NHS boards and utilities companies.
In an emergency situation these organisations would work together but there are many things communities can do to prepare for, respond to and recover from an incident.