Get ready for ShakeOut 2018

New Zealand ShakeOut, our national earthquake drill and tsunami hikoi is taking place at 9.30am on Thursday 18 October.

Over 1.34 million people took part in the last New Zealand ShakeOut, held in 2015. The campaign is designed to encourage people to take part in the drill and is co-ordinated by the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management (MCDEM) and supported by Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups, government agencies and partner organisations throughout the country.

This year organisers are taking a different approach to the ShakeOut campaign, by focusing their efforts on encouraging all early childhood centres, schools and tertiary organisations to sign up.

Ultimately, they hope ShakeOut will become an annual event that is easy to participate in, coordinate and promote.

To encourage involvement in this event, Tararua District Councilos Emergency Management and Communications teams have come together to see how they can make this an effective and fun event for our districts future generations. The Emergency Management team are organising visits to local schools to show a small 10 minute presentation on what natural disasters could happen in Tararua, as well as show the ShakeOut video.

It is also planned to run a colouring in competition for all year 1 to year 8 children.

The team will provide a selection of 3 colouring in pictures which can be handed out to students who would like to take part, with some great prizes up for grabs.

Prizes include a book about the Kaikoura Earthquake, drink bottles, and pNever Happens, Happensq bags. The prize for the overall winner is a pNever Happens, Happensq Blue Tooth Speaker.

Another initiative is our exciting video campaign for Facebook. Council will be making videos of Council staff showing their ShakeOut, these will be posted on Facebook with a challenge put out to the public to show us their ShakeOut. The videos will be similar to the ones produced by MCDEM: http://www.shakeout.govt.nz/share/

Taking part in New Zealand ShakeOut is easy and a great way for you and your family (or flatmates) to learn the right actions to take before, during, and after an earthquake.

Find basic instructions on how you can get prepared and do the drill: www.shakeout.govt.nz