Stand down

I have returned from my UNDAC deployment earlier than expected. Having only made it to Brisbane and met with the team, I've had to return home due to a family emergency. Here is a link to the ReliefWeb page for Papua New Guinea for those still interested in the sea swell events.

As I am now officially on leave, the blog is likely to be quiet for the next few weeks.

I'd like to wish every a happy and safe Christmas and prosperous New Year.

The things we do...

Well, I thought the blog was going to go quiet for a few weeks while I'm on leave. Cancel that! A call has gone out for an UNDAC team to assist with the coastal inundation from unusually high sea levels in Papua New Guinea. Here is a link to the information on Reliefweb (this is updated regularly).

A team of four UNDAC members has been selected to assist with the response, especially as a second and possibly more significant event is coming through in the next few days. The team comprises Peter Muller (OCHA Fiji), Odeda Benin-Goren (Israel), Maj. Alan Toh (Singapore) and me. We will also have two IT experts from the Asia Pacific Humanitarian Partnership coming with us from Singapore.

At this stage, I depart on Tuesday morning. If time and communications permit, I'll keep you posted.

Group Plan update

The Joint Committee met last Friday and received and endorsed the first two chapters of the draft CDEM Group Plan (Chapter 1: Background and Chapter 8: Management and Governance). I provided some background for the Committee on the process to date and the sorts of discussions we have been having.

A couple of the key points were:

• Centrally co-ordinated and locally delivered emergency management is key to a consistent approach across the Group,
• A triennial business plan, agreed to and funded collectively by members, will drive the work programmes of the Group,
• We are following a nationally consistent approach to the layout for the revised Plan,
• The CEG and Joint Committee will endorse the entire draft Plan before it goes out for public consultation.

Members were happy with the progress to date and noted the effort that had been put in so far. Some feedback was received about the complexity of the Plan and discussion was had on the possibility of a summarised version being available for people that don't require the full technical and legal version of the Plan. This possibility will be explored with CEG members.

Long distance camera testing

Members of the Red Cross Information Technology and Telecommunications Emergency Response Unit have been undertaking some training in Wellington today. Tony Groome (from our neck of the woods) borrowed the GPS camera to show the team what we are up to. Tony hadn't used the camera or Groove before and this afternoon I've received pictures of the training in the Groove synchronised folder, commented with the team in Groove and processed photos and put them in the folder for them.

This proves the camera over slightly longer distances and I'm confident that with a very little bit of training, most people could figure out how to drive this for a reconnaissance mission.

Well done team and good luck with the rest of the training.

NICDEM Conference

Delegates from across the North Island, a few from the South and even Tonga (good on you Maliu) gathered together in Rotorua for the North Island Civil Defence Emergency Management Conference yesterday and today.

Unfortunately I could only make it for day 1 but the region is well represented with about 11 delegates in attendance. Some great speakers filled the audience with hope for resolving what has been a tricky problem for for EMOs... fast moving consumer goods during pandemic emergencies. The Aussies have certainly made excellent progress and don't seem to have run out of steam yet.

The Horizons presentation went well (if a little hurried) and several people have already asked me to explain further some of the benefits we've seen in Groove and just how we're using it. The technology didn't let us down in front of a live audience (phew). Thanks to the team for helping pull this one off.

A good selection of exhibitors were on hand to catch our eyes (and order books) during the breaks.

Hats off to Greg Wilson and the team for organising a great conference.

Japanese CyberCafe

In anticipation of the Regional Incident Management Team (RIMT) exercise this week, demonstration of Groove and other tools to Ruapehu District Council, and the EM Conference next week, we've had the mobile office all set up and tested, downloaded all those updates that seem to arrive between activities and reminded ourselves how things work. Comments were made about it looking like a Japanese cybercafe!

The RIMT exercise is based at Landguard Bluff in Wanganui on Thursday and Friday and will involve 40-50 staff mostly from across the region. The team will be running through their response to large scale rural fires.

The Ruapehu District Council will be looking at the use of Groove in their EOC and figuring out just what they need to do to get on the Group-wide system.

The conference presentation is on Technology in Action and will be a song and dance routine between Rosco, Evan and me.

Finally, the Inmarsat BGAN hardware will be here on Thursday with expected service available from March. This means we can keep communicating when all the phones (landline and cellular) are down.

Hunting for a PRFO

Ross Fothergill will be leaving the team on the 3rd December for a role back in the NZ Army. Ross has spent the off season getting us ready for the fire season, pulling together training packages and preparing for the NRFA audit.

This means though that the hunt is on again for a qualified person to meet the demands of PRFO for two rural fire districts (Manawatu and Rangitikei). The role is based in Palmerston North, with an office in Marton, and goes as far north as Taihape. The details of the job and how to apply can be found here. I've posted a few things on the blog in the past about rural fire, they can be found here.

Near real-time snaps

At last we have solved the challenge of transmitting photos from the field to the decision makers in the Group Emergency Co-ordination Centre. We've had the components for a while now but have finally put them together. Here's how it works...

The Ricoh Caplio 500SE camera has a GPS unit mounted on the hot shoe. This means that when we take photos outside we get a GPS fix embedded in the photo tag. The camera has bluetooth capability and can send the photos as they are taken to a computer that is nearby.

We've partnered the camera with an Asus eeePC which is a very small, lightweight, solid state laptop. We've connected a vodem to the laptop to get us on the internet whilst in the field. The laptop has Microsoft Groove 2007 running on it (as do all our EM PCs).

So... as we take a photo, we press OK to send a copy of the photo by bluetooth to the laptop. The folder that the photo ends up in has been set up to synchronise via Groove. You can invite as many Groove contacts as you like to share the folder but I would limit that list. At the moment we only use one other computer in the ECC to receive images.

Once in the ECC we copy the images out to another folder (to prevent circular synchronisation) and then process the photos using the software that comes with the camera. GPS Photolink takes each photo with a GPS location embedded in it and creates a number of user determined outputs including GIS, web and Google Earth outputs as well as watermarked photos (like that above). This means that within a few minutes of the photos being taken, we can see where it was taken plus the photo itself.

We'll be demonstrating this process at the conference next month in Rotorua along with some more info on Groove as an ECC/EOC collaboration tool.

Group Plan... a work in progress

At yesterday's CEG meeting I presented a 'warts and all' version of the Group Plan. This is very much a work in progress but given the nature of the material to date and the fact that it doesn't sit neatly in a single chapter, it was just as easy to give members the whole document. Now this might come back to haunt me but ces't la vie. Clearly we haven't addressed some areas yet and really we've only workshopped our strategic direction and management & governance material. I'm currently working on readiness and response but haven't quite finished these yet (another workshop next week).

The CEG signed off on the Management & Governance chapter and the Background, recognising that we will see the entire Plan again before fully endorsing it before the Joint Standing Committee puts it out for public consultation and Ministerial comment. We may tweek the background a bit but we are confident in the M&G chapter.

If you'd like to have a sneaky peek, here it is.

A rainbow of rainfall for the region

Here is the link to a recently completed science report that provides some detailed maps of annual rainfall for the region. The maps provide at a 500m2 resolution, the rainfall for region based on interpolation between Horizons and NIWA long term rainfall sites. It is suggested that this information be used in place of previously generated rainfall isohyets for the region. The data is available as a GIS dataset.

Funded via Envirolink the report was generated as a part of the One Plan development process to provide rainfall inputs for nutrient management. However, the data has already been put to use by Jeff Watson in the flood modelling project.

This project was made possible through the efforts of many in the organisation, in particular Raelene Hurndell and Brent Watson have worked hard to coordinate this project with the NIWA climate team. If you have any questions about this project please do not hesitate to contact Raelene, Brent or Jon Roygard at Horizons Regional Council.

Group web site

Work has begun on the development of a CDEM Group web site. At the last EMO meeting, we talked about what this might look like. I outlined some of my ideas for a site, received some feedback and ideas from the EMOs, and told the team that we have some in-house expertise working on how we can achieve this.

Typically, web sites push information to people... we want to get clever and provide a push/pull element to the Group site. This means that regular visitors to the site can set up pages with information that they want to see. Hopefully this will help create site loyalty to the CDEM Group site. Users of Google homepages will be familiar with the pull features provided by Google. We are pretty confident we can do this for minimal cost.

We've had a bit of a look around at the other sites in New Zealand and... to be honest, they're really boring!!! (ours included). Now I might be a somewhat frustrated designer but I'm sure we can do better. First up, the address: ours is www.mwcdemg.govt.nz (WOW) and several of the local councils sites have emergency management pages too. How about some feedback on the following options:

• www.EMNet.govt.nz
• www.EM.govt.nz
• www.CDNet.govt.nz, or
• www.reallygoodemergencyinformation.govt.nz (said with a Jeremy Clarkson tone), or...
  
• www.EMIntelligence.govt.nz

So gone on... post some feedback.

Staff in the field

It is really good to know that staff in the field think to call in when there are issues that might have an impact on others. Blair Sowman called in this morning with news that the Gorge was closed due to a slip. This was soon followed by by a message via the Police e-mail notification system. If you are intersted in subscribing to the Police notification system, go here. Here is a picture that Blair sent through to us... good on you mate!

Open day - Feilding Fire

The team from Horizons were loud and proud at the Feilding Fire Brigade this past Saturday (but not as loud as the Fire Service). The Green RIG and earthquake cubes were staffed by the two Ross' and Environmental Education team. Emergency services, including fire, police, ambulance and the recsue helicopter were the main attraction but Vector, the Air Force and HeliPro were also present.

The open day was well attended by members of the public with displays of Fire Service skills and equiment. The weather packed it in later in the day but not before a lot of visitors to the site. As the wind picked up we were lucky not to see a big orange dome become airborne over Feilding.

Another good example of the services working together... thanks to Peter and the team at Feilding Fire for the invitation to be involved.

Last paper in course

Last Friday the final unit standards for the Level 2
Certificate in Emergency Management being conducted by EMANZ for the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group took part. The last paper was on aircraft safety and the team spent time in the classroom followed by practical lessons provided by the staff of the Square Trust Rescue Helicopter.

Some of the team hadn't had the opportunity to participate in aircraft safety training or go for a helicopter flight. This was good practical experience for some of the team that might be called on to do aerial reconnaissance, extreme event data collection, or welfare support flights.

Good response at response workshop

The fourth of our Group Plan review mini workshops was held this week... response is going to be our focus for a while so it was good to get some of the basics sorted. There won't be any startling changes but there is a move for consistency and best practice. The Co-ordinating Executive Group will be providing greater clarity on expectations and then following through to ensure that we a walking the walk and talking the talk.

After a shorter period of discussion than usual, the participants at the mini workshop recommended that we prepare the readiness, response and recovery chapters of the Plan and then bring them to the CEG for discussion. The basic understanding is in place following the first two workshops and the response discussions at this workshop have given us a good lead for the content of the Plan. Watch this space... things are happening.

Back on deck

Well, it's good to be back and refreshed ready for the run up to Xmas. I've had a weeks leave and a week on an UNDAC refresher course and was in Taupo yesterday for the second Central Plateau Volcanic Advisory Group meeting. With only 1,124 e-mails in my inbox I'm sure I'll be getting to the one you sent me any day now!

First of all, let's welcome Stewart Davies QSM to the managers role previously filled by Matthew Smith at Palmerston North City Council. Stewart brings a wide range of experiences to the emergency management scene including that of a Director of Land SAR New Zealand and a local SAR advisor.

The CPVAG meeting in Taupo provided a good opportunity for members to be updated on activities over the past 6 months. Further work is on-going with the review of the monitoring networks and the development of the Volcanic Strategy for the Group. I'm pretty sure that the Group will continue to refine the arrangements for a co-ordinated response to activity as well as day-to-day initiatives of members.

The first of the CDEM Group Plan review response mini workshops is being held tomorrow for CEG members. This meeting will set the direction for the preparation of the response chapter of the plan. A Welfare Advisory Group meeting is scheduled for next week to get officer input to welfare response issues. This will all be written up in time for a further response workshop to confirm the chapter before it goes to CEG. Here is a link to all the posts about the Plan review.

The Horizons EOC was activated on two occasions while I was away. The team managed events well including an opening of the Moutoa Floodgates. I also heard good reports of the new equipment in the EOC. Well done team!

Task Force Green work continues to be co-ordianted by Ross Brannigan in the Manawatu and Rangitikei districts. There is still a little bit of clean up work to do from the storm event of July.

OK - that's a quick update... more regular posts to come.

Marathon CEG

Well, the CEG met on the 23rd for its first formal meeting/workshop on the CDEM Group Plan review. Up for discussion was the strategic direction of the Group and Chapter 8: Management and Governance.

The material from the strategic direction workshop will be worked into the Foreword and Background in the Plan. Chapter 8 was provided in draft form and apart from a few minor additions was adopted by the CEG. That all sounds pretty straight forward but this is the longest CEG meeting we've ever had. 4 1/2 hours of good robust discussion is a long meeting by any CDEM standard! What is really pleasing to me is that the shape of the Plan, the planning pathway in relation to other documents, and the desire to be consistent across the Group are all taking shape in the eyes of CEG members.

The decision to drop memoranda of understanding between Groups and go for a standard commitment was well received. It is pleasing that MCDEM has seen the benefit of this approach and has introduced it into the draft Director's Guide.

The next mini workshop is on the 16 October and will address the first parts of the Response Chapter to the Plan.

Central Plateau Volcanic Advisory Group

The CPVAG is having its second meeting on the 14th of October and the agenda material has been prepared ready for distribution to members. I have e-mailed many members and advised that material would be posted via the blog. Here is a link to the documents for the meeting. The presentations from the previous workshop have not been posted in the Google Group but have been provided to members on CD.

Volcano Alert Bulletin for Ruapehu

Just as a fresh dump of snow is being received on the mountain GNS staff have issued an update on the Volcano Alert for Ruapehu. While things are warming up a little but this is not outside the normal cycle of activity observed at the volcano.

The Volcano Alert Level remains at 1 - departure from typical background surface activity, signs of unrest. The full Volcano Alert Bulletin is here on the GeoNet web site.

Microsoft Innovation Centre funding application

As you may be aware, we had a funding application in with Microsoft Innovation Centre to integrate our SMART Board with MS Groove. While this project made it to the final round and was well scoped out by Unlimited Realities and the Regional Council team, we were unsuccessful with the application this time round.

Ways of utilising Groove with a number of software packages currently in use by Group members will continue to be investigated by the Group but this particular initiative (worth about $65k) will be on hold in the meantime.

PRFOs in the pipeline

For the first time in 3 years the National Rural Fire Authority are running a course for training Principal Rural Fire Officers. I am fortunate to be on this course and have survived the first day-and-a-half of presentations. I must admit that it's quite a steep learning curve but so far so good.

The course is not unit standard based and is not intended to provide improved skills for use on the fire ground. The course is intended for managers who are responsible for the management functions associated with rural fire authorities including budgets and claims, risk monitoring, legislation and all that really exciting stuff. The collective experience of the participants is fantastic and I am learning as much from them as from the structured lessons. In some respects I have an advantage not having been in the business for very long... I'm not having to unlearn misconceptions and misunderstandings.

I am really glad we have Ross Fothergill and Tony Groome on board for our emergency response... their technical expertise will make sure we can provide professional services and advice on the fire ground where the rubber really hits the road!

Virtual volcanology - exploring volcanoes in Google Earth

From time to time when I find something cool I'll let you know. Here is what I've found tonight... John Bailey is a volcanologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory and is recorded here giving a presentation on AVO's use of Google Earth as an output tool for observing data from the remote sensing networks.

I know at this point you're concerned about me and wondering if I'm taking my medication but come on, this stuff is cool. For those of us that can't afford a trip to Iceland for the volcanogy conference, here is the poor man's conference participation. John's presentation is about 55 minutes long but is well worth a watch.

Make sure you have a good broadband connection before watching this!

Risk profile

I am aware that some of our members have trouble with large attachments to e-mail. I recently sent out a 3Mb file for the risk profile mini workshop and had a few of you contact me to say it had disappeared into cyberspace. To overcome this I've uploaded two documents to the Google Group. The Draft Risk Profile Section and Risk Profile Support Document can be picked up from here. The Strategic part of our current Group Plan can be picked up from here.

The meeting is at Horizons on Thursday 11th at 13:00 and is being facilitated by Brendan Morris from Hamilton.

New monitors in EOC

The CDEM Group Emergency Coordination Centre (ECC) and Horizons Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) are co-located and staffed within Horizons Regional House. Much of what we do is intelligence gathering, collating, assessing and disseminating information. In today's normal business and emergency management environments so much of the intelligence is received in electronic form. The need has emerged to be able to view this intelligence in electronic form too. It would be very difficult for example to re-draw the weather radar on a whiteboard. Other uses include monitoring of hydrographs, electronic log, web cameras, display of photos, media releases, Google Earth and Skype free video calling.

We managed to get a good deal on a couple of medium sized monitors (28") and a couple of 19" monitors with built-in winterms. So, we've bitten the bullet and popped them up in the EOC and also put Freeview decoders on the two larger monitors. This means we can monitor the news during events too. Yesterday we pulled the EOC to bits and put it all in place. I'm pretty happy with how things went and we had a bit of a tidy up of cables etc too.

ICE - new UN standard introduced

Many of you will be aware of the practice of including one or two ICE (in case of emergency) contacts in your mobile phone... here is an article I recently picked up via the Virtual On Site Operations Co-ordination Centre.

UN News
23 July 2008

23 July 2008 -- Next-of-kin information for injured people will now be easier to find thanks to a new telephone code from the United Nations telecommunications agency.

By adding prefixes such as "01," "02" and "03" before contacts - for example, "01husband" - in a person's mobile telephone directory, rescuers will be able to notify relatives or friends worldwide.

"This simple addition to a person's next-of-kin or nominated contact details has the potential to greatly reduce stress for overworked emergency workers around the world," said Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. "Anything that can be done to reduce the workload of these remarkably brave people and assist in getting injured people the right care and attention is commendable."

The code "ICE" - short for "In Case of Emergency" - has appeared in some mobile phones in English-speaking nations, but ITU members stressed the need for a global unified standard that would be effective regardless of language or script.

Incident Control Point

At last our new PRFO wagon has been fitted with the cargo tray I talked about in my earlier post. The tray is designed to carry incident management equipment in a way that still makes everything easily accessible. The company we used Vehicle Smart Draws took our basic idea and turned it into reality. The tray has a pull out bench with fold out sides to create a larger work table.

Underneath this table are a couple of drawers for the smaller equipment we'll need such as ID vests, office supplies, lighting etc. Behind this space there is also additional storage space under a cubby. A large inverter provides us with power to the work table anough to run our laptops, printer and that flash new coffee machine Ross has his eye on (yeah right). A feed for the radios from the cab is also provided to the work table and the remote heads can be positioned at the rear of the vehicle.

This unit coupled with our mobile office equipment and a canopy to keep the sun off will provide an excellent platform to perform ICP activities and briefings. All the fire fighting equipment is deployed on other vehicles or trailers.

Boys on tour

As part of our introduction to Rangitikei and Manawatu the Horizons and PNCC emergency management teams did a tour of the districts with a few experts in tow to give us the low-down on some of the highlights...

First stop, the Reid Line Makino River spillway. Rob and Cliff (Horizons Ops staff in orange) provided us with an overview of the works and some of the activities being undertaken in the next construction season. It was pretty boggy and still raining, but the team was interested in learning about this project. One quick lesson was to stay on the hard!

Malcolm (Environmental Management) and Jeff (Catchment Data and Information) helped us on the rest of the tour by providing overviews of the sandy hill country erosion, sustainable land use initiative, Utiku and Taihape landslide issues, Rangitikei at Mangaweka monitoring site and Dam 100 in the upper Hunterville flood detention scheme. General discussions about historical events and issues in the districts also helped as we moved from site to site.

Evan did a great job organising this so thanks to Evan and the staff that helped us out. Also to PNCC for the use of their van... great day guys.

BGAN gets closer

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan – A Proton Breeze M launch vehicle successfully lifted the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite into orbit on 19 August, marking the third mission of the year for International Launch Services (ILS). This brings the introduction of the Inmarsat Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) closer to reality for New Zealand and the Pacific.

Many readers will be aware that broadband satellite coverage is currently pretty limited in the Pacific region. Several agencies in New Zealand have purchased the hardware in anticipation of BGAN services becoming available. We have left space in our mobile office for the BGAN unit but will only purchase the equipment once the service is available. This launch, which was delayed following issues with the launch vehicle earlier this year, is really exciting for emergency management in isolated or challenging communications environments.

I'll keep you posted on our purchase programme and the tests that we undertake with partner agencies with this capability. If you're really keen, you might like to watch the launch webcast here.

Management & Governance

It has been a few days since my last post but we have been busy putting together the discussion material for the next mini workshop on the review of the CDEM Group Plan. I have e-mailed this information to the CEG representatives along with an early draft of the Director's Guide on CDEM Group Plan Review. I'm not at liberty to share the draft Guide with you but have posted three things that may be of interest:

• the memorandum outlining a discussion on delivery models, some funding models, and a commentary (M-Management-Governance-sb.doc)
  
• the first draft of Chapter 8 Management and Governance - this is missing some parts until we have had our workshops (CDEM Group Plan Ch 8-190808)
  
• the post strategy workshop discussion notes (M-strategic-direction-post-workshop300708-sb)
  

Click here to go to the files...

When the siren goes... worth a listen

Radio New Zealand have been playing a series of broadcasts related to civil defence emergency management and natural hazards. I must confess it took me until the last episode to listen to one of these but it was actually quite good! The stories are entitled 'When the siren goes' and are divided into six episodes. Jerome Cvitanovich is the host who takes us through a series of hazards and interviews New Zealand's leading experts on hazard and emergency management as well as witnesses and survivors.

Episode 1 is an overview of hazards
Episode 2 is on earthquakes
Episode 3 is on volcanoes
Episode 4 is on tsunami
Episode 5 is on snow storms
Episode 6 is on floods

I encourage you to have a listen to this series. For those of you who like a little more action and pictures... check out this tornado video on You Tube.

More weather on the way?

Well... it is that time of year you know! There is quite a bit of interest in the media at the moment about the next storm front on the way. We've been keeping an eye on it and while a picnic at the beach is probably not your first option, we don't expect this event to cause too many problems for our region. We will of course be keeping an eye on things as it gets closer and our duty officer system is always operational.

At the moment there are wind and snow warnings out for parts of the country and weather watches for rain but these haven't yet reached warning criteria. The ground is saturated from past events but river levels have dropped so there is capacity within the system to take some rain.

I think a warm fire and the Olypmic games are on the cards for the weekend.

My view - road closure info standards

Recent events have again highlighted the need for multiple roading authorities across the Group to collaborate on a system for integrated road status information - not just to emergency services but to the travelling public. A recent service offerd by the Police goes some way to solving this...

Get live updates direct from Police Communication Centres in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Updates include information on major events and incidents, road crashes, closures and conditions. You can sign up to receive updates from just one area or from all over the country.

The New Zealand Transport Agency (formerly Transit New Zealand) also provides information about State Highway status.

As a road user what I would really like is to view a map that clearly represents where roads are open, marginal or closed with an indication of delays or time to reinstate. During the recent storm event all roads in Horowhenua could have been considered marginal. I'd like to plan my route by zooming in and out of the map to look at detour options.

As an emergency manager I'd like this level of road information to be available within our GIS so that I might compare it with other information, such as flood plains, evacuated areas, welfare centres, emergency service locations etc. As a decision tool, knowledge of road status is essential. The current manual processes slow down the integration of this information and with the cooperation of roading authorities can be accelerated.

At upcoming Lifelines Advisory Group meetings I would like to address standards that can be adopted to facilitate information exchange and display. I'm sure many will agree that it is an area we can improve upon.

A weekend of celebration

There were a couple of celebrations held over the weekend that are worth recognising. Firstly, the EMANZ graduation was held at the Conference Centre. Graduands from all over New Zealand attended and were recognised for achieveing the level 2 and level 4 certificates. Tom Roche is pictured as emcee for the afternoon and was also the recipient of the Chief Executive's Award for Excellence. Congratulations to all involved in the training and the celebration.

On Saturday evening, Mitchell Brown celebrated his Gold Star Award. Mitch has completed 25 years with the New Zealand Fire Service and has clearly developed an extensive network of friends and colleagues during this time. Mitch's friends and family celebrated the award at the Bunnythorpe Fire Station with both national and international colleagues. Mitch is a dedicated member of the Co-ordinating Executive Group and has a real passion for emergency management. Good on you Mitch!

Tsunami data has arrived

I'm happy to report that we have received data from GNS Science on our tsunami run-up modelling. I've handed this over to our GIS team to produce a map of one area to show the CEG on Tuesday. Following this, we can develop material to suit our needs including plan development as well as public awareness and education initiatives. I will circulate the report and raw GIS data to the EMOs and Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management as well.

The data will also reside in our GIS system as a layer of hazard information. As we grow the GIS for emergency management purposes, we will be able to activate the various hazard layers to compare with infrastructure, community developments and emergency responses.

New PRFO wagon

Well the replacement vehicle for Ross Fothergill is just about operational. Ross is the Principal Rural Fire Officer for Manawatu and Rangitikei Districts and is employed by Horizons Regional Council to undertake this work. The vehicle is a Nissan Navara double cab and has been equipped with fire radio, regional council radio, CDEM radio, cellphone, GPS navigation, 240V inverter, slim light bar, and work lights and a 12V supply in the canopy. A cargo tray is yet to be fitted but its on the way. This will hold the equipment required to initiate a response and provide a work platform for incident control.

The canopy/cargo area is being set up to enable the use of the mobile office in the field. The wireless networked laptops and printer will all be able to operate from the vehicle. The use of the vehicle as the Incident Control Point is the primary driver for this configuration.

We haven't gone for the whole lights and sirens approach as we believe this is a management vehicle. The light bar is a health and safety consideration for incidents on the road. Over the coming months and years the staff of the Emergency Management Office will be increasing their skills to provide support to the PRFO.

Fire bugs de-light

Well the annual FRFANZ (Forest & Rural Fires Association of New Zealand) and IFE (Institute of Fire Engineers) conferences have been combined this year and have come to balmy Palmy. The two day conference (followed by field trips) has a fairly chocka programme with speakers from Greece, the United States of America, the United Kingdon and Australia, as well as many from New Zealand.

Excellent support from trade providers and agencies wanting to share information means that the foyer is full of cool stuff!!! I'm glad I left the order book in the office. Here is Noel being tempted by the goodies.

A little bit of R&D

You know things are serious when the techo's have the help files open!! Gareth is shown here working on a new technique for getting images from our cameras to the office. Apparently no-one else has done this with the GPRS technology we are using, so we are breaking new ground here. The camera (looks like robot eyes looking up) and the blue GPRS transmitter are being introduced to each other... hopefully they will work well together.

Gareth Gray is responsible for establishing some new webcams for us. We have purchased a few cameras for deployment to Akitio and Wanganui. These will help us get a better understanding of the impacts of wave and storm surge events that MetService and MetOcean provide us information on. We will also be using our survey team to gather information about actual run-ups following significant events.

We also have a third camera and are still tossing up whether this should go to the Moutoa Flood Gates or back to the Tangiwai site where we captured images from the 2007 Ruapehu lahar event.

Here is a link to the camera site... we have bought the M12 day and night cameras.

Watery webcams Batman

The Opiki webcam has been in place for a few months now. This is the first time we've seen water across the floodway since it was installed. The image is updated regularly as an indication as to whether the road is flooded or not. We still refer people to the AA Roadwatch site for the official line as we are not the roading authority. I'll talk more later about what we are doing with webcams.

We had a bit of a busy day yesterday and although communities close to the ranges seemed to be hit the hardest some areas remain completely calm and clear. Storm damage to the Pohangina Valley and Kauwhatau areas and throughout Horowhenua district kept services busy and power will remain off for a few days yet in some areas.

The Horizons EOC operated well and was really only a small event for the EOC staff to manage. Systems and procedures worked well and a few minor improvements will be made. We will also be keen to pick up on any improvements recommended by the Horowhenua EOC staff who are still operational today.

We got off lightly

Although there were some reports of damage across the region over the weekend, all-in-all we got off pretty lightly compared to our northern neighbours. It wouldn't have taken much for the weather bomb to swing a couple of degrees and head our way though.

The Emergency Management Duty Officer was not particularly busy over the weekend but we did take the opportunity to have a play with MS Groove during the build up phase. Evan had this to say about it... "Seems to work quite well and if I wasn't convinced of its full value before, I am now." If things had escalated, we would have shared the workspace with other EOCs that have already installed Groove.

The photo was provided by one of the Council staff who had a few problems at home over the weekend! Thanks Kerri.

Still watching the weather

The hydro team have had a few technical challenges this week with some of our telemetry equipment. Things seem to be up and running again now just in time for a couple of weather fronts coming through tonight and again early next week.

EMOs around the North Island have been testing systems and procedures in anticipation of tonights front and duty officers are on alert. Horowhenua have advised a change in mode to level 1 (monitoring). Horizons Emergency Management Duty Officer is of course in mode 1 for all weather warnings received for the region.

The ground is pretty saturated around the region and river systems won't take much to rise quickly. Availability of some key staff was checked prior to the weekend and EOC readiness double checked. So get out your gummies and rain coats folks we could be in for a wet week or so.

The picture is the current map from the MetService but check them out for the most up to date version.

The Green RIG at Parliament

The RIG visited Parliament today with participants of the Minister's Forum being briefed on the day-to-day role of the RIG and the emergency management use as an EOC if necessary. We took up the whole front access to Parliament and passers-by had the opportunity to visit the RIG and look at the earthquake cubes. The Minister was pleased to see we had a picture of him on the cubes too.

A number of local EMOs and MCDEM staff took the opportunity to visit and learn a bit about the environmental education programmes and RIG as an EOC.

PIMs ponder possibilities

A meeting of our Group's Public Information Managers, held in Feilding today, provided an excellent opportunity to share what is happening in the world of CDEM, learn from Exercise Regroup and think about where to from here.

Vince Cholewa from MCDEM provided an update on the Ministry activities including professional development opportunities in Christchurch later this year, disaster awareness week (2nd week in October, here is a link to last year's info), and a Te Reo version of What's the Plan Stan being launched this week.

I provided an update on CDEM Group activities, particularly the Plan review, review of the public education strategy, the exercise, use of Groove and answered lots of questions around g-mail and how we can exchange information during an event. Sharing information and helping each other out during smaller events will certainly help to make things smoother during the large events. The PIMS have agreed to share information about media contacts (and PIM contact details) in an effort to collectively become better informed. The introduction of Groove will help PIMS maintain contact data in future.

All-in-all, a really worthwhile meeting and all agreed to meet again later in the year to build on the meetings to date.

Science alert bulletin

Not currently available via the GeoNet site, but here is the latest on Ruapehu.

VOLCANO ALERT BULLETIN: RUA-08/04

3 pm Monday, 21 July 2008

Ruapehu Volcano – Unrest declines

Alert Level Remains at 1

Science Alert Level 1

Ruapehu is showing signs of a decline in the level of unrest. Gas output, lake temperatures and volcanic tremor have all declined. The volcano last erupted on 25^th September 2007.The Alert Level remains at Level 1.

Ongoing monitoring at Ruapehu, including a Crater Lake visit to measure the lake temperature and collect water samples, data from airborne gas measurements and seismic activity, have shown declines in the recent measurements. This indicates that the current period of elevated unrest is passing.

The Crater Lake temperature has now dropped to around 23 to 25 ° C, having ranged from 34 to 37° C since October 2007. The latest measurement was 23.3° C (15 July). The airborne gas plume measurements which had shown significant increases after April 2008 now show that SO₂ and CO₂ gas emissions have decreased to the typical background levels for Ruapehu.

Results from the Crater Lake chemistry are also indicative of cooling in the vent area. The slight increase in the level of volcanic tremor we previously reported has also declined to typical background levels.

These observations are consistent with the volcano-hydrothermal system now cooling. The current phase of volcano unrest appears to be over, however Ruapehu remains an active volcano. Future eruptions may occur without warning.

The Alert Level remains at Level 1 (Departure from typical background surface activity, signs of unrest).

Contact:

Brad Scott

Volcano Surveillance coordinator

GNS Science

Mass evacuation

This is not something we do after church!

The Director's Guide on mass evacuation planning has just been received by the Group and circulated to local EMOs. I am expecting the tsunami run-up modelling results through in the next few days and the two of these projects sit nicely together. We have received some test data from GNS to make sure that our system can cope with the format they have produced the models in (and it can).

It won't be too long before we can sit down and develop a strategic approach to tsunami risk response for the Group. If you would like a copy of the Mass Evacuation Planning Guide, it can be found here.

Checking our direction

The first of the mini workshops for the Group Plan review is to address the strategic direction of the Group. We intend to consider the vision of the Group which should be more than the one-liner provided to us, the issues that may impede that vision, and a review of the issues listed in the current Group Plan. CEG members are invited to participate in this workshop at Horizons Regional Council, 28th July 13:00 - 17:00hrs.

Participants are encouraged to give some thought to the future of the Group. I am willing to post or circulate any prepared material you might have to support this topic, just let me know. Here is the material I have prepared to get the conversation under way. This material in no way reflects the Group's view and is intended as a conversation starter only.

Keeping a weather eye...

The heavy rain over the weekend kept the Horizons and Wanganui District Council teams on watch. The Horizons EOC was activated for a few hours on Saturday afternoon to monitor and assess the Whanganui catchment. Early forecasts suggested that we could be in for a flood in Wanganui. As peak river height times got closer the model runs were lower than originally thought and the team stood down.

The Horizons river level alerting system made hundreds of phone calls over the weekend notifying people as the rivers rose through alarm levels. The system worked well despite needing a re-boot part way through the event.

The new Whanganui Flood Action Plan and automated flood forecasting system were both tested for the first time . The river levels only required the Plan to be activated to about 1/2 way. We have spotted a couple of minor adjustments we can make but on the whole the Plan is pretty good. The modelling worked well for the upper end of the catchment but still requires a little massaging for the lower reaches. The experts will be on to this over the next few weeks.

I think we played it fairly cautiously this time, but that provides me with a lot of comfort that the team can do what we have all committed to in the Plan.

Training coordinator and CEM

Congratulations to Evan Lloyd for being nominated by EMANZ as 'Training Coordinator of the Year'. Evan will find out at the EMANZ graduation on 9th August whether he has won this category... all the best Evan.

I will be talking with Steve Glassey (IAEM Board member) next week about advancing the Certified Emergency Manager programme and hope that a few emergency management professionals in the region take up the opportunity to become involved in this internationally recognised accreditation. Here is a link to the CEM brochure and here is a link to the CEM study guide. In essence, the International Association of Emergency Managers runs the programme to provide a standard for EM professionals. On-going demonstration of a contribution to the sector and professional development are required to maintain certification. In this respect, the programme is like many professional registers that ensure their members are current in the industry.

Earthquake prone buildings

One of the territorial authority matters that has been simmering away in the background is the requirement for TAs to have an earthquake prone buildings policy. Clare Hadley (Chief Executive, Rangitikei District Council) has sought my input from an emergency management perspective and highlighted a potential need to adopt a consistent approach for the CDEM Group activities.

We will include an item in the next CEG agenda on earthquake prone buildings in order to promote discussion on the types of buildings we would expect are needed for post event emergency management activities. Perhaps this too is a heads up for emergency services to determine the level of importance of facilities under their control.

Controller's manual

Hopefully this one hasn't gone unnoticed. MCDEM have developed a revised Controller's Manual... now called the 'Response Management: Director's Guide for CDEM Group and Local Controllers DGL06/08'. I suspect we will be calling it the Controller's Manual for a while yet.

Hard copies of Controller's Manual will be circulated soon. Here is a link to the new version so that you can download it (it's 1Mb).

Tsunami pilot project

For several months now we've been working with GNS Science to undertake some modelling of our regional coasts. Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group, Wellington and Northland are all taking part in a pilot project based on the nationally agreed guidelines for tsunami run-up modelling and evacuation zone development. Part of the delay in being able to do the modelling has been waiting for agreement on the national standard.

The Ministry roadshow on tsunami activities attracted a good crowd in Palmerston North this week and Dr. Graham Leonard gave a few of us a sneak preview of some of the modelling for the region. In the next few weeks, we can expect to receive the report that will describe expected areas of inundation for tsunami events on our coasts. This information will be used to inform the decisions about evacuation zones, routes, safe areas, warning procedures etc. etc. etc.

A big chunk of work will be taking this report to the communities potentially affected by tsunami and discussing how the community would like to handle the response. Some work undertaken by Northland has set an excellent example for our Group to follow, so we will take their lessons and use them to the advantage of our communities.

We'll keep you posted of developments.

'Unusual unrest' on Ruapehu

From stuff.co.nz

Crater lake temperatures and gas on Mt Ruapehu remain stubbornly high, nine months after its last eruption, GNS Science says.

"That doesn't mean an eruption is likely, but the current unrest is unusual," GNS Science volcano surveillance coordinator Brad Scott said today.

Crater lake temperatures and gas levels usually follow a predictable pattern of returning to normal after eruptions, he said.

Horizons Regional Council emergency manager Shane Bayley called a meeting of emergency management agencies last week for a briefing by GNS Science and to brush up on Mt Ruapehu eruption response plans.

"We identified ways to improve communications between agencies including councils, GNS Science, Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, Civil Defence Emergency Management groups, Department of Conservation and police," Mr Bayley said.

"While no predictions can be made about what might happen in the future, based on the unusual levels of unrest on the mountain, it makes good sense to be fully prepared."

He said police would lead the response on the mountain to any eruption and Ruapehu operators had worked with police and DOC to ensure appropriate reactions.

"We would like to reassure the public that the situation on Ruapehu is being watched closely by the Central Plateau Volcanic Advisory Group," said Mr Bayley.

Adieu, adieu, adieu

Well that's about my limit when it comes to foreign languages!

A few farewells and thanks are in order. Firstly, Malinda Nash is leaving the region to take up a new role at the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management. Malinda was formerly with MidCentral DHB in the pandemic planning role and then contracted to us to help write and deliver Exercise Regroup.

Matthew Smith, Head of Civil Defence and Emergency Management at Palmerston North City Council is moving desk and taking up the role of Development Services Manager within the Council. Matt will remain as a CDEM Local Controller for the City. Here is a link to the advertised position for the CDEM role.

Finally Stan Dulieu finishes with Rangitikei District Council as our contract takes effect with Manawatu and Rangitikei from today. Stan has been working for PEC in Marton on a part-time basis for a while now and will continue to support us in civil defence and rural fire activities for the local community.

I'd like to wish everyone well for their new adventures and thank you all for your contributions to CDEM in our Group. It's really nice that none of these players will be disappearing completely from the scene.

Microsoft funding gets closer

A while ago now we put in an application to Microsoft Innovation Centre for some development funding. The application was about getting a tab designed inside MS Groove that provides us with the functionality of SMARTboard's notebook and Bridgit conference capability. This means that you could share the information on your SMARTboard with people you have invited to your Groove workspace. This is just another way of providing for that information exchange. Being a SMARTboard of course doesn't put the information into a database type environment for use in other applications but it does mean we can see each others handwritten notes on the board.

Canterbury are also doing some work in developing forms for use in SharePoint and I can see us working closely with the Canterbury Group on future developments.

Both the Canterbury Group and our Group have been successful in having our proposals get through to the second round for funding. Hopefully sometime in the future I'll be reporting our success.

Keeping a finger on the pulse

Ruapehu had a bit of a hiccup in September last year and since that time things haven't really returned to normal background levels. In fact some of the volcanic indicators that our volcano experts keep an eye on have remained elevated or even increasing.

Given this snippet of information, we thought it appropriate to have a bit of a get together of some of the members of the Central Plateau Volcanic Advisory Group. Yesterday, we had a meeting in Taupo to make sure that our co-ordination plans were up to date and we were all on the same page. The snow storms of Tuesday night resulted in many of the roads around the region being closed and Annie (Ruapehu District) was unable to get through. We did have reps from DoC, GNS Science, Police, Waikato CDEM Group EOC, Horizons Regional Council (and Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group), Environment Waikato, Taupo District Council and the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management.

The meeting was very focused after an update from Brad Scott and I'm please to say that coordination arrangements are good to go. The agreement around the table about roles and responsibilities is excellent. Police are clearly the lead agency and the incident control point will be at Whakapapa. Good coordination of response agencies on the mountain is in place and an annual check of response plans has already been undertaken for the ski season.

We have tweaked the coordination arrangements and have agreed to exchange plans and improve inter-agency communications. Expectations on the CDEM Groups will also be minimal unless we have a volcanic event in conjunction with other incidents. The CDEM Groups will largely take a monitoring role and support the Incident Controller where requested.

So, for all those keen skiers and trampers out there, we are keeping our fingers on the pulse of the Central Plateau volcanoes and are confident that our emergency co-ordination arrangements are ready if they are needed. In the meantime though it looks like a fantastic season ahead so enjoy!

Group Plan mini workshops

At yesterday's meeting of the Co-ordinating Executive Group the revised timeline for the review of the Group Plan was agreed to and the conduct of mini workshops supported. The CEG also recognised this blog as an official, albeit informal, means of communication for the Group.

Members have asked me to publish the dates for the mini workshops in the blog. The idea behind these workshops is for smaller focus groups of the CEG to debate and discuss best practice for the Group and how we go about achieving that through our Group Plan. We would like to maintain a consistent core of 4-5 people across the workshops to avoid going over old ground. Other Group members are welcome to participate in areas that particularly interest them.

The mini workshop dates are:
July 28 - Strategic direction
August 28 - Management & governance
September 11 - Risk profile
October 16 - Readiness & response #1
November 18 - Readiness & response #2
February 25, 2009 - Recovery
April 8 - Monitoring & evaluation
May 14 - Reserve workshop

Emergency Management Officer workshops are also scheduled to either 'operationalise' the discussions of the mini workshops or to inform discussions prior to the workshop. Discussions will also be had during regular EMO meetings. Either way, local EMOs will be fully involved in the redevelopment of our Plan. EMO workshops are scheduled for:
July 29 - Strategic direction
October 16 (pm) - Readiness & response
November 19 - Readiness & response
March 9 - Monitoring & evaluation

Meet the gang

Welcome aboard to Ross Brannigan. Although I'm in Gisborne for a family funeral today, Ross #2 starts with the team today. Ross Fothergill started with us a few weeks ago and has taken up his role as Principal Rural Fire Officer for Manawatu (and Rangitikei in July).

So... Ross Fothergill is ex. NZ Defence Force and will be known to many for the role as Fire Master at Waiouru.

Ross Brannigan is ex. NZ Police and will also be known to many (for all the right reasons I hope) for his role as sole-charge officer at Foxton Beach. Ross B will be undertaking the role of Emergency Management Officer for Manawatu and Rangitikei Districts.

We will definately be giving someone a nickname in the near future. So the two Ross' join Evan and me in the Emergency Management Office but they will also be working out of the Marton office. Evan continues in his role as Risk Management Coordinator for Horizons and as Harbourmaster. My role will change slightly with more consideration being given to operational delivery of CDEM Group business and not just the strategic stuff.

Regroup relief

Well it's been a couple of days since my last message. The Group ECC and five of the local EOCs have been busy with Exercise Regroup. A pandemic influenza exercise with a focus on the CDEM Group activities.

On the whole I think the exercise was worthwhile. The aim and objectives have been achieved and a little bit more to boot. The formal debreif is not until 4th July but already a few things are standing out for me. We will be adjusting the CDEM Group's Pandemic Plan to reflect changes in communications process between the DHBs and the local EOCs. For routine matters that are best dealt with at a local level, this should be direct rather than via the ECC (which deals with more strategic issues).

The ECC will be refreshing some internal procedures in particular to build on the technological advances in our processes. I think we have enough training recommendations to last a year or more - at least now we can write the 08-09 training programme!

All in all - good job everyone. Thanks to all who participated and especially those who came in to assist us in running and assessing the exercise and the Group's capability.

Science Alert Bulletin - White Island & Ruapehu

GNS have issued a new Science Alert Bulletin for White Island. No change in alert level though. Read the bulletin here.

GNS have also issued a new SAB for Ruapehu. No change in alert level. The bulletin is not yet on the GNS site but reads as follows...

GNS scientists are continuing to monitor Ruapehu. Elevated gas output and high lake temperatures continue, while volcanic tremor has declined. Unrest continues at Ruapehu and it remains unclear if this is a sign of further eruptions. The volcano last erupted on 25^th September 2007.The Alert Level remains at Level 1.

Ongoing monitoring at Ruapehu, including a Crater Lake visit to measure the lake temperature and collect water samples, data from airborne gas measurements and seismic activity have continued to show variations. The airborne gas plume measurements show the SO₂ emission has gradually increased since last year’s eruption and the CO₂ flux has varied. The emission rates of both SO₂ and CO₂ gases, have shown significant increases since April 2008, being about ten times above the typical background. Our latest measurements on June 12 remains high. The Crater Lake temperature has remained elevated and fluctuates between 34 and 37° C. The latest measurement was 35.2° C (12 June). Sustained heat from depth is required to keep the temperature this high, for this length of time. It is believed that the source of this heat is magma within the volcano conduit. This magma is also producing the higher than normal gas flow and other chemical changes in the lake. The slight increase in the background level of volcanic tremor we previously reported has now declined to typical background levels. These observations remain consistent with the volcano-hydrothermal system responding to recent eruptions and ongoing interaction with magma in the volcano conduit. The volcano remains in a state of unrest and the possibility of further activity remains at the volcano. If further eruptions occur, they may occur without warning. The Alert Level remains at Level 1 (Departure from typical background surface activity, signs of unrest) and will continue to be re-assessed regularly.

My view - thumbs up

This weekend I was on the receiving end of an EMANZ course in Taupo and like all good emergency managers I was excited about giving up some of my weekend. In reality the fact that the course was on a Sunday, in Taupo, in the middle of winter was a bit of a pain. By lunchtime however I had thawed to the idea and in fact had a bit of a reality check.

The course was well run - thumbs up Steve Glassey & EMANZ and well attended - thumbs up response teams. For the last few years I have been removed from the volunteer aspect of civil defence and this course proved to me that vollies play an important part in our organisation. The fact that about 20 response team staff have given up their weekend to come to Taupo from as far as Auckland and Wellington was evidence enough to prove that volunteerism is alive and well in CD. What did impress me was the capability of these team members. If this is what NZ-RTs are about then I'm all for it. As full-time officers we need to be aware of this capability and incorporate them into our plans.

Phil Parker's set up in Taupo is pretty good too. Phil has been creative in his use of 'hand-me-downs' and proudly showed off his make-over of the old Central Zone publicity trailer (now a support unit complete with kitchen) and two fire engines (one shown here has been converted for flood response). This got me thinking that once we've identified a need, we can take advantage of opportunities as they arise... we don't need to wait for the Guicci gear all the time. Phil has been right on the money with his focus on response capability.

Thanks to all involved for a great day.

IRIS - an eye to the future

Many of the CDEM Group managers will be aware that there is quite a big project underway at the moment called IRIS. This project is looking at ways that regional councils can collaborate on the development of software applications for use in local government (among other things).

From a CDEM perspective, I am aware that an emergency management module has been discussed as a possible project for IRIS and that some members of the team will be visiting me shortly to find out what I would want from a software package for CDEM. For me the big three are accountability, consistency and best practice. If we can achieve this in an environment of collaboration and information exchange (vertically and horizontally) then we will be significantly further down the track than we are today.

In preparation for their visit, I would welcome feedback from anyone about how you see the software future of CDEM at Group strategic and operational levels. I'll keep you posted on discussions.

Council staff moving to high alert

THIS IS AN EXERCISE STORY

As part of Exercise Regroup Horizons staff will today move to high alert. Emergency Management staff yesterday reviewed the Council's Pandemic Influenza Plan and checked arrangements should the current outbreak reach New Zealand shores.

Arrangements for the redeployment of pandemic response resources are underway, instructions on personal and family preparedness offered and programmes for reducing face-to-face work requirements investigated. Additional measures are being taken to safeguard key staff and ensure that an ability to work from home is available.

The CDEM Group's Emergency Coordination Centre at Horizons has been activated but will be operational only during work hours at this time. The normal Council duty officer system remains in effect.

A Groove workspace will be created today to enable agencies to share information with agencies who have installed this tool already.

Some Group members have already addressed issues with their pandemic plans in anticipation of the exercise activation dates of 18-19 June.

New National Controller

Following a visit by Keith and Ian this afternoon, I have learned that David Coetzee has been appointed to the position of National Controller. I am sure that David will move over to the role with ease and wish him all the best in the new role.

Plan review timeline extended

At the Co-ordinating Executive Group meeting last month members asked that we revise the timeline for the CDEM Group Plan. A small working group was formed to undertake this and considered the following requirements:

• Adequate time be provided for discussion by representatives of the CEG
• The no more than one ‘mini-workshop’ be conducted per month
• That the review be based on the sections of the Plan
• That readiness and response be combined for consideration
• That reduction did not warrant a mini-workshop
• That Emergency Management Officers be guided by CEG recommendations to ‘operationalise’ arrangements
• That a focus on response be emphasised in discussions

The CEG will be receiving an item with the draft timeline (Gantt chart attached) on the 24th June and will also be advised that the MCDEM Guideline on Group Planning may not be available until December (reported to the Joint Committee on the 6th June).

MCDEM Tsunami Information Seminar

You will be aware of the importance the current Government has placed on the tsunami threat over recent times. The Ministry and a number of Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups have committed to a variety of programmes aimed at improving New Zealand’s resilience to this threat.

A great deal of work has been completed under the auspices of the Tsunami Working Group nationally and the Ministry is committed to a programme of updating the widest spectrum of the CDEM sector on the progress of such projects as tsunami warning systems, signage and research. These seminars will also include updates on related areas such as Evacuation Guidelines and 2^nd generation planning for CDEM Groups and its constituent members.

The objectives for the programme are :

1. To inform Groups of tools for tsunami risk management

2. To encourage group planning for tsunami

As part of the national rollout of these seminars (there will be six nationally) MCDEM invite the widest spectrum of our Group membership to a seminar to be conducted on the 26^th June 2008 at the Palmerston North Convention Centre, Gallery Room, 354 Main St, Palmerston North between the hours of 0930 and 1330. We anticipate the attendance of all members of the Group, the CEG and a wide selection of CDEM stakeholders i.e. Regional/District hazard planners, emergency services etc. MCDEM will precede the seminar with tea/coffee and conclude with the provision of a light lunch.

Members of the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group are requested to confirm attendance by e-mail to keith.evans@dia.govt.nz

North Island CDEM Conference 2008

Here is a brief heads-up about the conference this year. Greg Wilson from Environment Bay of Plenty is organising this year's conference and details of our CEG and EMOs have been forwarded to Greg.

The theme for the conference is 'Emergency Managers of the Future: Something for Everyone'

The conference will be held at the Novotel, Rotorua on December 4th and 5th. More details will be coming soon but put these dates in your diary now.

Groovey man

Many of you will be aware that I've been looking at Microsoft Groove as a solution for inter-agency collaboration and information sharing. Well, I'm pleased to report that the CEG recently agreed that Groove and Google Earth are central to collaboration. We considered including Skype in that category too but decided that this was an optional extra.

Members of the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group are therefore encouraged to install MS Groove 2007 in their EOCs. As we get used to this technology, I understand that limited installations will be carried out - probably on stand-alone machines. I'm confident though, that as things develop we will find day-to-day uses for these tools and integrate them into our daily work routines. You can view a video of Groove here.

We have created several Groove, G-mail and Skype accounts that follow a theme of generic naming. Funnily enough, all ours start with Horizons. They then describe positions EM, RMC, PRFO, EMO, ECC, MOB1, MOB2, MOB3 (MOB = our mobile office), CE, GMRSI, GMCG, PIM. We may also look to develop CIMS titles such as LOG, PI, OPS, H&S for use within the ECC. In the meantime we will set it up so that emergency communications go to the Group Emergency Co-ordination Centre (ECC) - HorizonsECC. I suggest we work on a consistent naming theme as we start implementing Groove across the Group.

We will be doing some rudimentary tests of the system during Exercise Regroup next week but it will take several months to roll out the software to be a comprehensive tool for collaboration. In the meantime, please give some thought development of the system, installation and inter-agency involvement - we'd love to hear your views.

My view - Group level v's local level

I guess it's important in these early posts to say that opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the CDEM Group. I'll head up posts with 'my view' when you're getting my opinion. I'm certainly up for healthy debate on these things.

So here's the first one... Right across the CDEM sector we talk about national, group and local level CDEM. I think this is a hang-over from the days before CDEM Groups were established and we had national, regional and local civil defence organisations. In those days, the regional and united councils had little influence over how civil defence was delivered at the local organisation level as each organisation was autonomous and required by law. This resulted in nearly 100 civil defence organisations around the country doing similar things but in a variety of ways. In part, this disparity was the reason for about 15 years of civil defence review and the eventual formation of CDEM Groups.

Too often I hear from local EMOs (from all over NZ) that something is 'Group' or 'local' business and they're not involved in that. Nothing could be further from the truth - we're all local EMOs - local means our Group (that's why we can only declare a local emergency).

I'd like to suggest that we change the way we talk (and write) about our CDEM Groups, from Group and local level to strategic and operational level activities within the Group. The operational level includes territorial authorities, Regional Council, local Police, Fire, health providers and community groups. Strategic level includes the Regional Council, regional level government departments, District Police, Regional Fire, District Health Boards, and regionally significant organisations as well as strong links to the territorial authorities.

So let's talk about the strategic and operational activities of the Group and not continue the thinking of the 1983 Act, that promoted separate regional and local civil defence organisations.

Feel free to post your opinions in response - I think it all helps to move the sector forward.