COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 09, 2019

QUESTION NO. 18

QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor

To ask the Chief Executive to confirm what arrangements are in place to deal with emergency calls through the Christmas period; will he give full details in that regard and make a statement.

REPLY: 

South Dublin County Council's Severe Weather Assessment Team (SWAT) meets in advance of all storms on foot of any Met Eireann Weather Warnings received. The SWAT is made up of senior staff from across the organisation. The purpose of the meeting is to assess the readiness of the council to deal with the upcoming storm and severe weather events and put in place preventative actions as required.

South Dublin County Council  has under the Major Emergency Management Framework,  the following plans:

The protocols for Severe Weather are contained in the plans, and being actioned upon receipt of weather warnings from Met Éireann, are as follows:

Status Yellow: Be Aware - A general notification email is sent to relevant staff across the organisation- inspections of key infrastructure and equipment carried out by relevant departments.

Status Orange: Be Prepared - Triggers a meeting of the Severe Weather Assessment Team (SWAT) comprised of senior management across all departments, who discuss the issues particular to that weather event and agree the appropriate response/ action from each department.  

Status Red: Take Action - this should be a comparatively rare event and implies that recipients take action to protect themselves and/or their properties. The SWAT team is now a Crisis Management Team and meets as often as necessary - hourly, twice daily, etc., depending on dynamics of the weather event, possibly over the conference call facilities. National and Regional Emergency offices are likely also being updated via teleconference at this stage to facilitate inter agency cooperation between the LA, HSE and AGS.

The 2019-2020 Winter Maintenance Plan includes information on the 7 gritting routes and also on salt barns and the locations and availability of salt bins.

The gritting trucks can also have snow ploughs attached if they are required, information on the routes are available at the link. Winter Gritting Routes 2019/20. The Council has 7 gritting trucks and 7 snow ploughs.

Information is provided to citizens throughout weather events on all available social media including our website www.sdcc.ie, The national winter ready web site also has very useful information and can be found at https://www.winterready.ie/en 

The Council has maintenance crews on standby to deal with emergencies over the Christmas and Winter period.  An emergency service is provided where members of the public seeking assistance in an emergency can contact the Council's out of hours emergency number at 01 4149000.

Crews from Roads, Water and Drainage, Housing and the Public Realm are on call to deal with flooding, fallen trees, frozen/burst pipes and other weather related incidents.

You can also follow the below Twitter accounts to stay updated.

https://twitter.com/sdublincoco

https://www.facebook.com/SouthDublinCountyCouncil

@emergencyIE

@DubFirBrigade
@ESBNetworks
@MetEireann
@gardainfo
@GardaTraffic
@IrishWater
@IWCare
@opwireland