Planning ahead: What happens if disaster strikes?

That's where the Cowra Emergency Management Committee come in.

The first meeting of the group for 2020 was held on Tuesday, March 10.

The committee meets every three months and brings together local heads of emergency services, utilities, council and state departments like NSW Health, Local Land Services and RMS to prepare and plan for any emergency situation that may arise in Cowra.

Officer in Charge of Cowra, Inspector Adam Beard, said the committee wants the local community to know they are thinking about possible incidents in advance.

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"We want the community to know that the emergency management committee are looking into possible eventualities on a coordinated basis," he said.

"We plan for the uncertainties of nature, accidents and emergency situations that occur on a large scale, we review flooding yearly, leading up to and during bushfire season we are vigilant to bushfire management.

"We discuss and prepare for any matters in relation to emergency management and conduct a number of exercises throughout the year both desktop and field exercises," he said.

Mr Beard said the community may not know about the emergency plans in place for Cowra.

"We do suspect that members of the community have questions or concerns in relation to emergency management, they may not know where to go on a local basis," he said.

"In the event of an emergency I take on the roll of Local Emergency Operations Controller as I'm the senior police officer and I'm ably assisted by a Local Emergency Management Officer employed by council, who at the moment is Harvey Nicholson.

"Our committee members are all available on call on a 24 hour basis and we also have an emergency operations centre which can be set up.

"Thankfully we don't do it often," he said.

Council General Manager, Paul Devery, said the committee had existed in various forms for some time.

"It is a requirement of the State Emergency Act so it's (the committee) been around for a long time," he said.

"Council's role is to provide that forum for emergency contacts and agencies to get together and we are the administrative support for the committee.

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"Topics discussed range from the floods back in 2016 to a truck full of livestock overturning, all those kinds of incidents are considered on a multi-agency basis," he said.

Both Inspector Beard and Mr Devery said the committee's work was focused on the Cowra area.

"A lot of our planning and policy documents of focused on the unique situations of Cowra, there's not a generic plan that's given to each council," Inspector Beard said.

"Pandemics are something we look at, more recently we've done airport disasters and hazard materials."

"Livestock has had a focus in recent years with equine flu," Mr Devery said.

"Adam mentioned the floods before, the SES coordinates the flood plan, so we know that if it floods, if the river hits a particular level, we know what's going to go under, this facility or that road.

"It's about having that knowledge in the event of an incident and you can predict some of the impacts of unplanned events.

"So we are always constantly looking at those things and what would be the response and how incidents get dealt with."

Mr Beard said one of the things the community may not have thought about were places of refuge with in the shire's towns and villages.

Areas Local Emergency Management Officer, Harvey Nicholson was keen to point out.

"The evacuation centers at the moment are the Golf Club, Bowling Club and Services Club," he said.

"Within the RFS regime they put together Neighbourhood Safer Places, which are an area within towns and villages where people can go as a place of last resort.

"They are in Cowra, Wattamondara, Woodstock, Darbys Falls, Gooloogong and Wyangala.

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"They are all signposted with a green sign with white writing. Woodstock and Gooloogong are at the school, Wyangala is at the country club, Wattamondara is at the sports ground and Cowra's is at the showground.

"If you look at the fires on the coast where everyone went to the beach and had to be evacuated by boats, the Neighbourhood Safer Places in the country areas gives people a common place to go to.

"They are ordinarily chosen for ease of access into a safe area and the one at Wyangala was given consideration to get a helicopter in to," he said.

Both Inspector Beard and Mr Devery said the community may have emergency management scenarios they hadn't considered and encouraged them to contact the committee.

"If any businesses have concerns about how, if for example they had volatile products or potential operations that could be a risk to the community, we would deal with that come and have a chat," Mr Devery said.

"If anyone has concern or questions about emergency management matters in Cowra contact me," Inspector Beard said.

To raise emergency management matters with the committee Inspector Beard can be contacted at the Cowra Police Station on 6341 5099 or Council's Local Emergency Management Officer Harvey Nicholson on 6340 2036 or at hnicholson@cowra.nsw.gov.au