PREPARING FOR EMERGENCIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 4

PREPARING FOR EMERGENCIES

•PHIS morning's test of the Emergency Precautions Service Organisation was made the more valuable by the army's participation. The test thus covered, in theory, all that would happen if a r.eal emergency arose, and on the whole it proved that the team workers were efficiently organised, that they knew what was expected of them, and that they were not only prepared but fitted for their duties. There were weaknesses, of course, but they were less than might have been anticipated on the first full-scale test, and on the whole they are easily remediable. The outstanding weakness was in the alarm system, which was not sufficiently imperative in all areas. This is a scattered community, and because of the hilly nature of the city there are areas into which sound does not travel well, and a number of the team workers did not get the call when it was first sounded. However, that Is a problem which has been noted and can be bvercome. Another is that some of the workers live far from their stations, so that some may be in the city doing their ordinary tasks when they are required in their residential suburbs. A regrouping will set that right. The element of surprise in the test, which came much earlier than most of the personnel anticipated, made the excellent turn out the more impressive, and the response will greatly hearten those who have worked ever since the outbreak of war to create an organisation on paper and then to translate it into reality. They have done well, and they deserve the thanks of the community for their success, and, what is more important, its unequivocal support in still further strengthening the whole co-operative movement and a prompt and rpady response to all its demands upon the people whom it has worked so energetically to safeguard. A striking feature of the test was the excellent work done by the ambulances in collecting the "wounded" and the first aid squads in attending to them. No less useful was the manner in which teams of young cyclists restored communications theoretically bombed out of existence. Fire-fighting and similar activities proved the readiness of the special trainees, and in general the test proved that the E.P.S.O. has been prompt to learn by the experience of tne bombed areas.