Ready for Anything (RFA)
We're looking for volunteers to join our Ready for Anything team to be able to support the emergency services during incidents, such as flooding. More information about Ready for Anything and what is involved when you sign up to become a RFA volunteer.
Major Incident Response Team (MIRT)
Working closely with the police, MIRT volunteers provide confidential support to anyone who may find themselves caught up in an incident or event that is outside of “normal” life. For example, road traffic accidents, bereavements, community evacuations, witnessing or being caught up in larger emergencies. More information about the MIRT team do and what is involved in volunteering as part of the team.
October 2021 - Update for Ready For Anything volunteers:
Dear volunteers,
Another challenging weekend for the team. Some of you may have picked up on the news that there was a large gas outage in Harrogate this weekend. This resulted in low pressure affecting up to 3,000 properties and caused some to lose gas altogether. Northern Gas Networks were on site from Friday afternoon finding, isolating and fixing the leak and work was completed on Saturday night. However, unlike with a power outages, when the pipework was fixed, it’s not immediately resolved. The gas pressure needs time to build back up again and each property needs to be visited to ensure it is restored safely.
On Saturday morning we received a request from Northern Gas Networks to support them delivering letters to affected residents to inform them of what was going on and where they could get support. Volunteers were deployed both on Saturday and Sunday to help with this task. Yesterday we also received an additional request to door knock properties. Engineers we visiting all properties to ensure gas had been restored safely and volunteers we able to support this process. In total, over the last three days we have deployed nearly 20 volunteers who have delivered letters to, and visited, hundreds of properties in central Harrogate which was an amazing achievement.
As with any incident, information was constantly changing, but the volunteers did a superb job adapting to the request. A massive thank you to all the volunteers involved, your enthusiasm and support this weekend really helped the affected communities. We have also received some lovely feedback from staff on the ground and members of the public on social media, I have included a few below.
“What a pleasure it was to work with the RFA volunteers over the last three days. It’s my first real contact operationally with the team and it was a great experience. The volunteers were exceptionally keen and all very proactive on the ground. The feedback I have received from Northern Gas Network and also from comments on social media, there assurance was greatly appreciated and contributed to the response” Ian Speirs, Emergency Planning Manager, Harrogate Borough Council.
Thank you for your continued support and for being a part of this fantastic scheme for North Yorkshire and York.
Don’t forget that you can also follow us on Twitter for regularly updated information.
https://twitter.com/NYorksPrepared
