Emergency Management

The ACT Policing Emergency Management and Planning Team forms a part of the Road Policing and Emergency Management and Planning portfolio and is divided into two teams, 'Emergency Management', and 'Planning'.

Each team works towards increasing the preparedness and response capabilities of ACT Policing to major events, Guest of Government visits and major incidents. Major incidents include, but are not limited to terrorism, natural disasters, health pandemics, recovery operations and crowded places.

ACT Policing Emergency Management aligns with the ACT Government’s all hazards approach to emergencies within the Territory, recognising that no one agency can address all of the impacts of a particular hazard, either in a proactive or reactive sense.

Emergency management is not just about responding to an emergency.

Emergency management is a range of measures to manage risks to communities and the environment. It includes the development and maintenance of arrangements to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. It begins well before an emergency occurs, and continues through to well after the emergency has passed. The comprehensive approach is best remembered through the acronym PPRR:

  • Prevention
  • Preparation
  • Response
  • Recovery

Prevention

To eliminate or reduce the level of the risk or severity of emergencies. It includes identifying hazards, assessing threats to life and property and taking measures to reduce potential loss to life or property.

Preparation

To build the capacity of communities to cope with the consequences of emergencies. It includes arrangements or plans to deal with an emergency or the effects of an emergency.

Response

To ensure the immediate consequences of emergencies to communities are minimised. It includes the process of combating an emergency and providing immediate relief for persons affected by an emergency.

Recovery

To support individuals and communities affected by emergencies in reconstructing physical infrastructure and restoring physical, emotional, environmental and economic wellbeing. It includes the process of returning an affected community to its proper level of functioning after an emergency.

Emergency Alert

Emergency Alert is the national telephone warning system. During an emergency, you may receive alerts about emergencies in your local area from Emergency Alert. This includes alerts from ACT Policing and other agencies.

Messages about emergencies including fire, flood and extreme weather are sent by:

  • voice to landlines based on the registered address of the service
  • text messages to mobile phones based on the last recorded location of the phone.

ACT Emergency Services Agency

Emergency Planning Arrangements

The ACT Emergency Plan describes the responsibilities, authorities and the mechanisms to prevent, or if they occur, manage emergencies and their consequences within the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in accordance with the requirements of the ACT Emergencies Act 2004.

The objectives of ACT Emergency Plan are to:

  • outline the principles for emergency management in the ACT
  • describe how the components of ACT emergency management work together under a single, comprehensive and flexible framework
  • identify roles and responsibilities related to identified hazards and associated emergencies
  • identify, in relation to each different form of hazard, the lead response agency primarily responsible for controlling the response to the emergency provide for the coordination of the activities of other agencies in the Territory and elsewhere in support of a lead response agency in the event of an emergency
  • identify the key roles and responsibilities that may be activated during an emergency.

For information relating to ACT Ambulance, ACT Fire & Rescue, ACT Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service news and alerts please visit the ACT Emergency Services Agency website.

ACT Policing Online News

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