Recovery into Readiness' community meetings Wednesday, August 26

Chairman of the Shoalhaven Bushfire Recovery Vince Di Pietro said the three events, which are all being held on Wednesday, August 26, aim to provide residents with information on what is planned for the coming season.

Shoalhaven City Council has partnered with the Rural Fire Service and NSW Police to host the events, with live one-hour interactive webinars this Wednesday at 1pm and 4pm, while a live stream on council's facebook page will be held at 7pm.

"It is something again unique to the Shoalhaven," Mr Di Pietro said.

"And was something born out of the meetings we had after the bushfires for tradies interested in undertaking bushfire recovery work with Laing O'Rourke.

"We had held community meetings at a number of venues after the fires but to try and get tradies from all over the area in the one place at the one time was almost impossible.

"So we held a webinar and we had more than 300 people register and more than 290 take part.

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"In today's world with COVID-19 restrictions and such there is no way we can get large groups together, but by holding these two webinars and a live Facebook event we are hoping Shoalhaven residents from all parts of the city can take part in at least one and find out what has been planned already for the next season,.

"Which unfortunately is not that far away."

He said the webinars were all about sharing the information as to how the city is getting ready for the next season.

"The idea is people can log into the webinars or the Facebook live event - we will have the Shoalhaven Mayor and various different emergency co-ordinators and emergency services represented," Mr Di Pietro said.

"I'm looking forward to be able to help the best we can and explain how, as a city, we are getting ready for next season and letting residents know what they need to try and do to be prepared as well.

"We will also be having representatives of NSW Health taking part.

"We know there are people that this is still extremely raw - it's only months ago we were right in the middle of the full-blown bushfire emergency.

"And we know that might be hard for people - and if it is, we encourage them to turn off.

"The events will be posted onto Shoalhaven council's website and they can watch it later in their own time."

The hour long webinars will also include a question and answer session where people can post questions online.

"We will be attempting to answer as many questions as possible," he said.

"All the questions will also be taken by council and answers will also placed on the council's website," he said.

"It's an ambitious endeavour but we feel it is one way for us to get our message across the whole city without having to bring everyone together which would simply just be impossible."

The webinars and live stream will also be recorded and published on council's Bushfire Recovery page, where more information on the events can also be found.