How to plan ahead

Everyone out now! These are words you don't expect to hear as you go about your daily life, but on rare occasions the police may strongly advise, or even require, you to leave your home or business premises immediately.

This could be due to fire, a bomb threat, utilities failure, severe weather or other major incident.

If the worst happened, what would you do first? What would you take with you? If you only have a few minutes, would you know where to find the things you would want to take?

At home

Most people having to evacuate their home will go to family or friends (shelter would be available from the council if required); however, those difficult first few hours will be made easier if you have access to your medication, money, family contact details etc and have thought about arrangements for pets.

Our Guidance for residents section has some useful tips has been prepared by the council and its partner emergency responders as part of the Town Centre Evacuation Plan.

A 'help required' card is for use during an evacuation by anyone who needs assistance.

Business

Time is money to a business - if evacuation is long-term, would your business survive? Would your customers stay with you? A Guidance leaflet for businesses on how to prepare for, survive and recover from evacuation has been prepared by the council and its partner emergency responders. Contact us to request a copy.

The aim of the guidance is to:

• Publicise the arrangements in place to deal with an evacuation of town centres within North Lanarkshire.

• Publicise the arrangements in place to deal with an evacuation of town centres within North Lanarkshire.

• Provide businesses with information about the zone and the adjacent zones where their property is located.

• Enable businesses to be aware of good contingency planning practice for incidents which may affect them.

• Advise businesses what actions to take to help safeguard their staff, property and visitors in the event of a major incident.

• Make sure that in the event of any incident, the return to normality is dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Preventing an emergency may not be within your control, but you can control the extent that it will impact on your life or business. Isn't it worth a few minutes of your time to plan ahead?