Last week one of our Duty Controllers teamed up with other emergency service partners to sharpen their collective response to major incidents – such as severe weather.
Led by Northumbria Police, Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service, Northumberland County Council, the Environment Agency, and ourselves took part in the joint two-day-long event in Alnwick.
The participants discussed how they would best deal with scenarios such as wide-scale flooding and damaging high winds, as they heard from a number of speakers with vast experience of successfully dealing with major incidents.
We regularly work with our emergency colleagues, and this was about honing those skills and testing how we can best come together to protect our communities and, in extreme cases, save lives.
Only too recently we have seen the impact severe storms can have on our operational area, particularly in our more rural communities, and should that happen again, we want to ensure that we continue to be best placed to respond to those who really need us.
