Severe Weather Tasks for Community Groups

Severe weather in the UK rarely needs a heroic response. It needs a small group of people who know who is vulnerable, who has a key to the village hall, and who will knock on doors when the snow comes. That is the work a community group can do, and most of it happens before the weather arrives.

The single most useful task is checking on people. Official guidance for heavy snow is simply to check on your family and local community¹, and the Met Office winter checklist asks households to think of vulnerable neighbours². Before or when a storm is forecast, check on those in your community who might need extra help and offer practical support, such as help obtaining food or medication, if possible³. After the storm, make sure vulnerable neighbours or relatives are safe and help them make arrangements for any repairs⁴.

Everything else follows from that: a written plan so people know who does what, a list of who may need help, a named contact at the council, and a decision about whether your group could run a hub. This page sets out the jobs as a printable list, then explains how to build the plan behind them and where to get advice.

Severe weather checklist for community groups

Work through this list as the forecast turns. Each item is something a group can do without special equipment or training, and each is drawn from official guidance. Share the list with your neighbours and see if you can help each other prepare for what the weather might bring⁶.

1. Check the forecast and any warnings, and tell the group. Severe weather events often require a coordinated response from emergency services, local authorities and communities to mitigate their impact and support recovery efforts⁸.
2. Ring round the people on your list who may need help. Heavy snow advice is to check on your family and local community¹; the Met Office winter checklist says to think of vulnerable neighbours².
3. Before a storm, offer practical support such as help obtaining food or medication to those who might need extra help³.
4. Identify family or neighbours who may need an extra helping hand if severe weather strikes, and have their phone numbers to hand⁹.
5. Clear snow and ice from paths together. Simple activities, like getting together to clear snow and ice from paths or offering a helping hand to neighbours who might become vulnerable in an emergency, are the kind of community response Scottish guidance describes¹⁰.
6. Deliver supplies during severe weather if you have a suitable vehicle¹¹.
7. After the storm, check that vulnerable neighbours or relatives are safe and help them make arrangements for any repairs⁴.
8. Report medical emergencies and life-threatening situations to the emergency services, and check that everyone has shelter¹².
9. In hot weather, make sure cold water and ice are available to minimise risks from dehydration on a yellow heat alert¹³.
10. Tell your council what your group is doing if you are experiencing or responding to an emergency; they may be able to provide advice and assistance⁷.

Have a community emergency plan

A plan is what turns a group of willing people into something that works on the night. When an emergency happens, it is best to have a plan in place so you know who to contact and how your group will support your community and the emergency response⁷. In Scotland, guidance describes a plan as helping communities prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies using their own strengths, skills, knowledge and resources, while complementing official efforts¹⁰.

The plan does not need to be long. Official templates guide you through deciding who the plan is for, getting advice, thinking about the risks to your community and your local skills, knowledge and resources, involving people who can help, and writing and testing the plan¹⁴. A community emergency response plan helps identify what risks your community may face, what you can do to manage them, who has useful skills and training, what equipment is available, how to support vulnerable people safely, and how to look after and use volunteers¹⁵.

One condition matters more than any other: you need support from your community for a plan to work. People need to be prepared to sign up and offer to help if an emergency happens¹⁶. A plan written by two people and never shown to anyone else will not survive contact with a real event.

• Who it is for: the streets, estates or villages your group covers, and the people within them who may need help¹⁴.
• Who does what: roles and responsibilities, so nobody waits for someone else¹².
• Who to contact: the council, the emergency services and your local resilience forum⁶.
• What you have: skills, equipment and premises, including any building that could serve as a hub¹⁵.
• How you test it: writing and testing the plan are part of the process, not an afterthought¹⁴.

If you are starting from nothing, the practical steps of forming a group, agreeing roles and writing a first draft are set out in Setting Up a Local Emergency Group: Members, Roles and First Steps. Once a draft exists, How to Test and Review a Community Emergency Plan covers exercising it, and When to Activate a Community Emergency Plan covers the decision to put it into action.

What a community emergency plan helps you prepare for

An emergency could be anything from severe weather, flooding or fire to a major incident involving transport¹⁷. The plan is the same document whatever the hazard; what changes is which part of it you use.

Your starting point should be your local risk picture. Local resilience partners produce Community Risk Registers, which focus on the highest priority risks in each local area¹⁸. Typical hazard scenarios considered include transport accidents, severe weather, flooding, industrial accidents and environmental pollution, human health, animal health, and industrial technical failure¹⁹. The register covers non-malicious events, that is hazards rather than threats such as terrorist incidents¹⁹.

The Scottish guidance is blunt about how to use it: focus on those risks that are important to your community and that you can do something about²⁰. A group in a valley that floods does not need to plan for everything on the register.

Flooding deserves its own plan. Communities can significantly reduce the impact of floods by working together to prepare for emergencies²¹, and formalising what you intend to do means developing a community flood plan that includes all the information needed before, during and after a flood²¹. Templates are available from councils²². Community Flood Plans: What to Include and How to Use One takes this further, and Flood Wardens: What They Do and How to Become One covers the warden role that often sits alongside it.

Community emergency hubs: what they are and what they need

A Community Emergency Hub is a group of people with roles and responsibilities that can be used during an emergency or disruption¹². It is not primarily a building, though a building usually comes into it. During a disruption, the hub's job is to identify priority groups, check on the community immediately after and regularly in the days that follow, check everyone has shelter, and report medical emergencies and life-threatening situations¹².

If your group is considering a building, be clear about what it can and cannot provide. Any building used as a hub should support people with the basic essentials such as water, toilets and insurance cover. A hub likely will not come with food, so the community will need to consider how it will feed people who have been evacuated²³. A hub can also act as a safe shelter, a cool or warm hub, or an assembly point for the community²⁴.

Some councils support groups directly. Buckinghamshire Council sends a kit containing a guide to Community Emergency Hubs, a safety briefing, lanyards for roles, maps of the community, an AM/FM/DAB radio and stationery¹². During a major flooding incident, information gathered at a community emergency information hub is shared with the local authority or the Environment Agency by phone or email, or when a representative visits the hub²⁴.

Community Emergency Hubs: Setting One Up and Running It covers the practicalities, and the Emergency Hub Kit and Facilities Checklist lists what to gather. If your group is thinking about a hub, Do Emergency Volunteers Need Insurance? answers the question that usually comes next.

Getting help to start your plan

You do not have to invent this alone, and you should not try to. Contact your local resilience forum for more information on helping your community in severe weather⁶. A local resilience forum is the body that brings together the emergency services, councils and other responders for your area, and it is responsible for conducting Community Risk Assessments and developing a Community Risk Register¹⁸.

If you are a community group that is experiencing or responding to an emergency, contact your local council, which may be able to provide advice and assistance⁷. Some councils invite groups to send in their plan for guidance; Buckinghamshire Council, for example, asks groups to email its resilience team for guidance or to tell the council about their community emergency plan¹². Belfast City Council invites anyone thinking about starting a community emergency plan in their area to email for more information²⁵.

Training exists too. The Met Office community resilience training prospectus is aimed at those who work or volunteer in the local community to make them more resilient to severe weather events, and its courses give community responders and the voluntary sector who work closely with local responders the chance to increase their knowledge and find sources of information to assist them as they respond to severe weather²⁶.

Grants are available in some areas. The Devon Community Resilience Forum offers grants for community engagement and for equipment to communities preparing or implementing community emergency plans, with applications open for 2026/7²⁷. Funding for Local Resilience Groups: Grants and Where to Apply sets out the wider picture.

Who to contact, and how to work with responders

The most common question from a new group is simply who to email. The answer depends on what you are asking.

Working with responders is a two-way relationship. It is good practice for a community to identify local hazards and make plans on how to assist the emergency services and other responding agencies²⁸. That means knowing what your group can offer and being clear about what it cannot do. What Volunteers Can Safely Do, and Where to Stop is the page to read before anyone takes on a task, and How Councils and Emergency Services Work With Local Groups explains the structures you will be dealing with.

Heat and summer weather

Summer tasks are easy to overlook because the danger feels less obvious than snow. Before summer, complete an audit of your organisation's community emergency plan and any hot weather plan to ensure they are up to date¹³. On a yellow heat alert, ensure sufficient cold water and ice are available to minimise risks from dehydration¹³.

Know who is most at risk. High-risk groups that are vulnerable to the effects of heat can find it hard to cool themselves efficiently once temperatures rise above 26°C²⁹. Practical advice includes closing windows when outdoor temperatures are higher than indoor temperatures, for example during the day²⁹. The heat health guidance for social care managers applies to England²⁹.

If your group works with older people, read the Cold Weather Conversations and Talking About Heat toolkits to enhance how you communicate severe weather risk with residents in later life³⁰. The Met Office summer advice is to enjoy the sunshine and hot weather but make sure you do it safely²⁶. Heatwaves and Drought: A Household Guide covers what to tell households, and Checking on Vulnerable Neighbours in an Emergency covers the visit itself.

Keeping the list ready between events

A checklist is only useful if the people on it can find it. Keep the plan, the contact list and the hub kit together, tell every member where they are, and review them before each season. The Met Office winter checklist asks households to think of vulnerable neighbours², and the summer equivalent asks neighbours to share a checklist and see if they can help each other prepare for what the weather might bring⁶. Both are seasonal prompts to do the same thing: check that the list is current and that the people on it know you are coming.

Severe cold weather can be dangerous for vulnerable groups such as older people and those with serious illnesses⁵, and local resilience work in some areas includes supporting communities with the cost of living and the pressures of heating bills, and providing practical support such as identified warm spaces throughout the county⁴. Knowing where the warm spaces are is part of the list.

Finally, remember the limit of the group's role. A community group complements the emergency services; it does not replace them. Report medical emergencies and life-threatening situations, check that everyone has shelter, and leave the rest to the responders¹².