We had a school Emergency Preparedness session that was very useful and is clearly taken very seriously in Wellington. Even before the Christchurch earthquakes it sounds as though Wellington was taking emergency preparedness seriously. The organisation that Amesbury School is undertaking makes some schools seem woefully underprepared for emergencies. We will even be having fullscale practices where the parents come and collect the students as if it were an emergency situation to check that we have workable procedures for releasing students. There will be drills that include 'shelter inside' (e.g lockdown, chemical spill) or 'evacuate' (e.g. fire, earthquake) and drills in classtime and at break time. Arrangements are also being made to evacuate off-site to a nearby community centre if need be. Fortunately Amesbury is not in the tsunami zone so we don't have to worry about that. I did learn that if you're at Te Papa and there is a tsunami warning you should stay there - it's built to withstand tsunamis apparently. All Wellington schools have been rechecked for earthquake soundness and Newtown School has had most of its classrooms condemned. There are a whole bunch of relocatable classrooms being used there. Amesbury has been built with a high level of earthquake soundness so I feel quite safe there.
Image of Te Papa from Through the Humours Blog
2 comments:
An interesting blog Carolyn. Glad that your new school is emergency conscious, especial with regards to earthquakes. Well done - Dave
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