Applications are now open for awards recognising people around the Hunter who show initiative in the face of an emergency.
The Resilient Australia Awards and the Get Ready Community Awards acknowledge the importance of keeping people safe when disaster strikes.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast and the Hunter, Scot MacDonald, stresses the important of recognising the selflessness and resilience of those who help to prepare the community for natural disasters.
"It's very important that they recognise those groups or those individuals or the organisations preparing for emergencies."
MacDonald says that The Hunter region is one that is prone to natural disasters, and that the community must be ready for these emergencies.
"We always seem to have challenges through summer with our bushfires- we live in a beautiful environment, but with that comes, unfortunately, these incidents like storms and floods."
"Anything that can prepare the community, get communities ready for those events, make sure households have got essentials, anything like that."
MacDonald is encouraging all those eligible to apply, in an attempt to recognise those who help to keep the region safe and ready.
"Any organisation can apply- they're open to individuals, not for profit organisations, small businesses, local government schools- all those sorts of things."
