Extreme Weather

Are you ready?

Extreme weather is hitting us at increasingly regular intervals.  It can bring rain, storm, heat, wind and harm people, buildings, roads, trees, disrupt services and every part of our lives. So it’s a really good idea to be as ready as we can so we can support our staff and volunteers, and our communities!

These resources are primarily aimed at VCSE (Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector) who support people across our communities. We need to make sure we can cope as organisations, with prepared and confident staff and volunteers; and we need to make sure we can support the communities we serve, and the vulnerable members of those communities in particular, who will often be amongst the first to be affected.

 There are four self-explanatory stages we can think about that help us do that: Prepare; Respond; Recover; and Review. 

Prepare

This bit is really important! The more we can prepare for these events, the better we will cope with them when they do. Trying to figure out a plan in the dark, or with water round our ankles, or when it’s too hot to think, is hard. Let’s do that thinking and planning beforehand, so we know exactly what to do!

1. Think about how ready your organisation or group is to cope with a storm, or a flood, or a heatwave.  You may already have a Business Continuity Plan, which simply means you have a plan to keep going when emergency hits, like a power cut, or communications glitch.  If you do, have a good look and make sure everyone knows what it says, and that it includes extreme weather. If you haven’t got one, here are some examples of simple templates for business continuity plans (BCP).
   • large enterprise BCP – fillable-v1
   • medium enterprise BCP – fillable-v1
   • small enterprise BCP – fillable-v1
2. Training your staff and volunteers is hugely helpful. If you want to know more about this, talk to us by emailing our VCSE Climate Preparedness Lead, Manda.  Here are some useful resources for this:
   • Training and exercising: vcsep.org.uk/exercising
   • NHS information and guidance: nhs/heatwave-how-to-cope-in-hot-weather
   • Information on how heat can affect our medicines and what we can do: gov.uk/dont-let-the-heatwave-affect-your-medicines-three-important-tips-from-the-mhra
3. You can use the  UK government “action cards” to go through a useful checklist for your organisation, too. 
   • Heat – This is a simple checklist for heat you can use – there is a longer list you can access via this link too.
   • Cold – This is the simple checklist for cold – again, with a longer list you can access via this link.
4. Providing information to the communities you support can be really helpful too.
   • Metoffice Household info on heat: 10-things-you-should-do-now-to-prepare-for-summer
   • General Beat the Heat advice: gov.uk/beat-the-heat-staying-safe-in-hot-weather
   • Easy read Beat the Heat booklet: beat the heat – staying safe in hot weather – easy read updated/
5. Make contact with your local flood group via the Cornwall Community Flood Forum. These volunteers are fully trained and can help with a range of emergency situations. You can find out via the map of flood groups here. Make sure to do this before a flood happens, so you know who to contact and how you can get involved in helping your community.
6. Make contact with your local town or parish council, who may be developing their own community emergency plan. It’s good to know who is doing what in your community; and if you are a community organisation local to them, its great for them to know about you and how you might be able to respond in an emergency.

Respond

1. Here are some useful resources to help people cope with heat that you can share with staff, volunteers and community members.
   • Beat the Heat Poster: gov.uk/Beat_the_Heat_2023.pdf
   • Beat the Heat – staying safe in hot weather:  Staying safe in hot weather (Signed Video)
   • Beat the Heat – staying cool at home checklist: Staying cool at home (signed video)
   • AgeUK : How to Keep Cool in Hot Weather: ageuk.org.uk/staying-cool-in-a-heatwave/
2. A key part of our “response” is via our Community Hub network. These Hubs can be found across Cornwall, and increasing numbers of them have an extra “emergency support” function, such as providing co-ordination, signposting, or even a cuppa in an emergency such as a power outage, or other emergency. In an emergency, they become a “Community Emergency Hub”. You can find out where your Community Hub is here. You can find out more about Community Emergency Hubs here.

Recover

After an event, our sector is often critical in terms of how we support our communities. We are working to co-ordinate our work in this area – you can contact  our VCSE Climate Preparedness Lead, Manda, for more information on this.

Review

After an event, it’s really important we review what went well, and how we can learn and adapt. We are working to co-ordinate our work in this area – you can contact  our VCSE Climate Preparedness Lead, Manda, for more information on this.