Someone's just told me it's Christmas

How did that happen?? The team were leaving the office and said see you in the New Year! It certainly has been a busy year and the Emergency Management Team in the Group has been pretty busy. Our main benchmark for the year was the approval of our CDEM Group Plan (which you can download from here).

We got off pretty lightly this year, with no significant emergencies - just your usual snow storms, wind storms, heavy rainfall, storm surges, earthquakes and flooding. We also activated and evacuated for a potential tsunami which was a little out of the ordinary I must admit. All in all, I think the team is pretty well set up and working together. The level of co-operation across the Group's membership is excellent and if we need to circle the wagons for an event I have confidence in our ability to work together.

Next year will have a few interesting activities and I've been working on my work programme for the first 6 months to try and squeeze it all in. I'll post more on that in the New Year.

On that note, I'll sign off for the year and wish everyone a very happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.

EMIS implementation phase

The Ministry have yet to announce the successful provider for the national Emergency Management Information System but are forging ahead with planning the next phase of the project. This week nominations have been sought from the CDEM sector for two Group level and two territorial authority level representatives to be on the EMIS configuration team.

David Coetzee is suggesting that the first roll-out of the EMIS will be in the middle of next year (which fits well with my earlier predictions). The Config Team will be looking at the basic structure of the EMIS and setting up work flows and processes, as well as some templates as part of the core package. A 'straw-man' will be developed by MCDEM staff for presentation to CDEM Groups as a teaser and to solicit feedback on ideas and preferences of the Groups. Once this presentation has been completed and Groups had an opportunity for input, the Config Team will set about producing the core EMIS.

The time commitment of the Config Team is not insignificant and could be 3+ weeks. It is important however that we get it right as the future of CDEM will be significantly influenced by the EMIS. If you are interested in being nominated for a role in the Config Team, contact your CDEM Group's Manager for the terms of reference and nomination process.

Viewing the calendars

On the sidebar, there are a couple of links to Group calendars. It is our intention to use our Google calendars as the source data for our calendars. This means that no matter where you find an on-line Group calendar, it should be drawing its dates and detail from the same location. We're starting with the calendars here on the blog but you may find soon that we also have the calendars on the Horizons website and also on the CDEM Group website once this is finally up and running. If you want the code to link our calendars to your site, please let me know.

In the past, we've posted a pdf of our calendar to the website - not only was this long winded, but often we would get conflicting calenders. Using an on-line calendar will hopefully eliminate this risk - with the current on-line version being the latest.

I have discovered that you need to be logged into a Google account to view the calendar - its pretty painless and you can use your existing e-mail account to create a Google account (if you don't already have one) - I'd strongly recommend it. Just follow the simple instructions and don't forget to verify your account from the e-mail they send you.

Emergency Management Summer Institute

I have received a wad of brochures in the mail today for next year's Summer Institute. The programme runs for 5 days from 15 - 19 March 2010 at the Massey University Wellington Campus. The programme is co-sponsored by GNS Science, Massey University, University of Canterbury and MetService.

The programme looks good with an impressive line-up of speakers covering

• Emergency management planning,
• Developing effective all-hazards warning systems,
• Evacuation planning and welfare,
• Classroom in the coach, and
• The role of public education, community engagement and public participation in building resilient communities.

For more information about the programme, you can download the brochure here.

Benchmark reached!

It's been a few days since my last posting... a few of the team have been tied up with the National Special Olympics Games being held here in Palmerston North. Last Friday morning however was an important date for the CDEM Group! The Joint Standing Committee met and approved the new CDEM Group Plan. This is the culmination of about 18 months worth of planning and consultation and is the start of the next era of CDEM for our Group.

The Plan will be available on the Horizons web site in the next few days. We will also be publishing hard copies of the Plan for distribution.

Exercise Eastern Comms

As a prelude to Exercise Eastern Oil in April next year, several Horizons staff participated in an exercise today to test communications solutions for the east coast of the Horizons Region. Based at the Akitio Boat Club, teams deployed north and south to evaluate possibilities and issues for a marine oil spill response including communications challenges, beach access, foreshore types and possible factors for clean-up activities (such as wildlife). The teams used the Council Team Talk radios, ESB 164 emergency services liaison channel from a temporary repeater (set up with the assistance of Tararua District Council staff), and satellite phones. We borrowed two repeaters, one from the NZ Fire Service and the other from Tararua DC. Teams also took photographs, tested GPS units and the tracking function of our SPOT personal trackers.

The Incident Control Point (ICP) was set up in the Boat Club - great venue! We tested deploying our mobile office including three laptops, colour printer, BGAN satellite terminal, telephone exchange, GPS enabled camera, radios, data projector and screen plus the usual whiteboards and the ancillary equipment. In addition, we had several staff with their laptops and an iPhone. We also have the advantage that Horizons has a router operating in the Boat Club to transmit photos of Akitio back to the office. Most of us hooked into the router for fast and inexpensive connectivity. We Skyped, Twittered, SMS'd, and Googled... now that I think about it, the only thing we didn't test was the fax.

I'm really pleased with the way everything performed. We've got a couple of little things to follow up in the next few weeks but the baseline preparation is well underway for Exercise Eastern Oil. Evan did a great job of planning this exercise, so a big thumbs up for him!

Barrier training

The Foxton Beach flood barrier was erected last night by the local NZ Fire Service crew. This is the second time the crew has been out to practice setting the barrier up. There are still a few improvements that can be made to the barrier itself and the suggestions of the local Fire crew have helped to build capability in this area.

The barrier (which looks like a big white sausage) is designed to be erected during high flow or storm surge events that will push river levels up to the stopbank. There is a short section of bank that is lower than the rest to make provision for the road. This section is blocked off by the water filled barrier to complete the flood protection works as required. Drivers could still get past given the firm ground conditions last night and the low slope of the surrounding stopbank.

It took the crew about 40 minutes to deploy and fill the barrier with about 30,000l of water. Well done guys.

Emergency Management Information System Update

As part of my selection to represent the CDEM Groups I made an undertaking to keep you informed on EMIS progress. Well, we've survived three days of pitch from the three finalists in the EMIS evaluation round. John Hamilton announced at the recent North Island conference that Critchlow (WebEOC), E-Sponder and Intergraph + NC4 were the three providers to be evaluated. Each spent a day demonstrating their products and how these measure up to the RFP requirements plus any additional benefits we would acquire as part of the purchase.

I'm happy to say that we will end up with a product that will do what MCDEM was seeking. We are still to crunch the numbers on the RFP analysis and do a SWOT analysis but my gut feel is that we are down to two contenders. Of these two, I have a personal preference but both have strengths and weaknesses.

Things are on track and I am really excited by the possibilities.

What could this mean for you as CDEM Groups? Well, CDEM Groups can still carry on with no change. If you are currently using a system, you won't be expected to change - although there may be long-term/big picture benefits in adopting the national EMIS. If you are currently considering an EMIS for your Group, I'd wait - you might get one for free. At this stage, it looks like Groups can ride on the coat-tails of MCDEM provided you stick to the core process and principles of the generic workflow for Group and Local EOCs. If you want to tailor this, you would probably be required to purchase a licence (price unknown as this is provider and add-on dependent). To be honest I didn't think any of it was unreasonable on the price front.

What's next - there is a big chunk of work still to happen - we need to be really clear what a generic workflow looks like. What are the job descriptions, what are the plan templates and forms, authorisation processes, generic dashboards, etc etc that Groups would want to see in a core package. These can be tailored to some degree including look and feel, branding etc for each Group but still provide for Group and national roll-up of data. In some cases, this may mean a slight adjustment to your internal processes (or you purchase a licence and tailor the package to suit your processes without corrupting national level data feed requirements). For me, the war cry is consistency and I do think we are seeing some real leadership from MCDEM on this. I hope that as a sector we play the game - this is the start of a new era in CDEM in this country.

9th Annual Emergency Management Conference

22-23 February 2010, Duxton Hotel, Wellington, is the time of the 9th Annual Emergency Management Conference. The programme is looking pretty good this year and at least one of the presenters will be brilliant (gee I wonder who that'll be).

Here's a link to the conference site where you can download a copy of the programme and registration material.

We have a winner...

During recent Disaster Awareness Week activities, we were running a little competition. Visitors had the opportunity to answer ten questions about storms and preparedness. All the answers were on the display and this encouraged visitors to actually read the information.

Congratulations Diane and Brian Wesch of Palmerston North who have won the LCD wireless weather station. Ged Shirley, Chair of the CDEM Group's

Co-ordinating Executive Group is pictured presenting the prize at Horizons Regional Council this afternoon.

There will be another opportunity to win a weather station during Field Days in March.

North Island EM Conference 09

Well, Hastings District Council did a great job of the conference this year. As part of the celebrations of their 50th year as a civil defence organisation, the Council chose to host this year conference. I must confess to a little bit of disappointment when I first saw the programme, but I think they pulled it off nicely.

Paul Hawke and team had a really good mix of historical events (the 1931 quake), recent events (Napier siege and Samoa tsunami), research (earthquake fault mapping) and national level updates from the Director. The evening dinner was also a good opportunity to network with colleagues and meet one or two of the newbies to the sector.

I didn't attend the field trip but as an optional extra this too would have added to the conference (good reports were heard).

Some of the usual suspects had their wares on display and it was great to see their continued support for these conference activities. Wright Satellite Connections, PSL, ReadyNet, Meerkat Alert Systems, Spirit Wireless and SRT Shelterbox helped to distract us during the breaks. Lyndon Tamblyn from Bulls had the Shelterbox equipment set up - no sooner had he arrived than he was being asked to deploy to an earthquake in Indonesia - thanks for sticking around Lyndon.

Seasonal flu and H1N1 communications

For those of you who missed it, the webinar hosted by the Centre of Excellence for Risk and Crisis Communications on social media and technology breakthroughs for H1N1 and seasonal flu communications, is now available on-line.

Here is the link to the webinar. Here is the link to the original story on this blog.

My view - tsunami reports

Both the internal and external reviews of the response to the Samoa earthquake and tsunami were released on Friday. The internal review is an honest attempt by MCDEM to improve internal systems and procedures. It doesn't really attempt to look at the wider CDEM sector and recommend improvements for the entire response. I guess that's fair enough although I do think MCDEM underestimate their sphere of influence sometimes.

There have been discussions within the Ministry about re-activating the Tsunami Working Group to help work through recommendations in a consultative manner - good on you MCDEM.

On the other hand... the external review is a waste of time. Not only does the report not address the questions raised in the terms of reference, it was whipped out in short order with unrealistic consultation. For example, the CDEM Groups and NZ Fire Service were not consulted but the National Foundation for the Deaf was - I just don't get that, especially when one of the points was to focus on the 'use of information and distribution of warnings, advisories and messages at the local level'.

The main focus was on public information and all of the sub-areas were to have this slant - but surely local use refers to how successful the Group and Local Public Information Managers and local media were at relaying critical advise and information to the affected communities? Sorry guys but this whopping 5-page report just doesn't cut the mustard.

The internal review is available here, and the external review here.

Review of CDEM tsunami alerts process

I'm sure by now you've heard the there are two reviews underway following the response to the Samoa earthquake and tsunami. The first of these reviews is an internal review of MCDEM responses. I guess this is similar to the reviews many of us did to double check procedures and arrangements and to implement any opportunities for improvement identified.

The second review has been requested by the Minister. The following information was drawn from the Beehive website:

Civil Defence Minister John Carter has asked for a review into how the Civil Defence and Emergency Management ministry deals with tsunami alerts.

"Generally, the response to yesterday's tsunami warning was pretty good, but there are concerning reports about the ways in which some information was communicated to the public. Frankly, that is not good enough," says Mr Carter.

"Public confidence in Civil Defence is critical. There are always lessons we can learn from events such as these and I am determined to ensure we do learn from them."

Mr Carter says co-ordination between the national Civil Defence headquarters and regional operations went largely to plan, and it is usual for regional civil defence controllers to manage warnings in their own areas, because what works in one area may not work in another.

"For example, some places have cell phone coverage and some don't. That's why it's important regional controllers are able to make their own calls on their own patch.

"However, I think Civil Defence weren't as helpful as they could have been in communicating with the media in the early stages and I am also concerned about reports saying places like Wellington Airport didn't get timely information. We have to sort that out," Mr Carter says.

It was with some surprise yesterday that I learned that the review is complete and that none of the CDEM Groups present at our meeting yesterday had been consulted as part of the review... we'll read the report with interest before making comment.

Catching the next Wave

Yeehaa... HorizonsEM@googlewave.com

HorizonsEM is now on Google Wave Preview. Back in June we talked about a few new things coming up. One of these was Google Wave. We've just received the invitation to participate in the Preview version of Wave (i.e. beta) before the worldwide release. This will give us a chance to take a look at something I personally think will become an important collaboration tool - eventually replacing e-mail as we know it today.

If you're keen you'll want to see this 80 minute video... but you do need to be keen! If you too have a googlewave account - give us a wave... that would be 'shiny'!

Tweeting

You can see from the sidebar that I've been using Twitter a little more. We are starting to get a little bit of a following and I have been a little more conversational in our tweets - I've still tried to keep them semi-official though. I am conscious that the tweets are from the Group and as such can't be too casual.

During Disaster Awareness Week we tweeted our location and closing time. We also tweeted during the tsunami responses and had some members of the team watching Twitterfall on one of the ECC monitors (although not constantly).

Now that I have been upgraded to an iPhone, I can tweet without the need to log on to a computer so it is a lot easier than it was previously.

Remember if your tweeting about civil defence, include the hashtag #nzcd in your message.

Off to the Minister

Well, following the Group Plan Review Committee hearing on Tuesday, the proposed CDEM Group Plan is now off to the Minister of Civil Defence for his comment. The Hon. John Carter gets a month to have a look through the Plan and provide comment. Given that we've worked through MCDEM's feedback and amended that draft I'm hoping for some nice feedback from the Minister.

Once we've received the feedback from the Minister, the Plan will go back to the Joint Standing Committee for final approval (then it will be time for a lemonade).

Busy times...

It's been a while since my last post! We've been relatively busy in the office and the place has been a bit chaotic. The 'house' is undergoing some renovations at the moment and most of the team are trying to avoid the office. Luckily we are all set up to work remotely.

There are a couple of activities to report on... Disaster Awareness Week kicked off for us last Friday in Feilding. This tied in nicely with Farmer's Market and a visit by the Melbourne Cup to the region. Our new AirShelter arrived the day before and the displays were all tested on Thursday afternoon in the backyard of the Council - thank goodness everything went to plan. We were interrupted by a tsunami watch but that didn't hold us back!! We;ve also been in Wanganui, Taumarunui and Palmerston North with the display. The Dannevirke, Levin and Marton displays were postponed due to the weather. We'll catch those punters when the weather fines up.

On the Group Plan front, we received some late feedback from the Ministry that warranted getting the Review Committee together. Up until that point, we had only received submissions from officers and had pretty much agreed to a few minor changes before sending the Plan off to the Minister. The Review Committee gets together next Tuesday to consider the changes and will forward the Plan to the Minister following this meeting. Although there were seven pages of feedback, the general consensus was that the Plan was good to go and MCDEM were just trying to tighten things up a bit.

My view - tsunami response

Well, what a week! There have been quite a few accusations in the media about the NZ response to the earthquake and tsunami from Samoa. I have also been (accurately) reported in regional and national newspapers and there has been some discussion on radio about our ability to respond. I'd like to put the record straight.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management (MCDEM) is NZs official tsunami warning agency. They receive advice from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) in Hawaii. MCDEM then analyses the information from PTWC to determine the impact on NZ coastlines and if appropriate issues a warning to agencies and CDEM Groups as well as the media.

The media is a multi-billion dollar communications industry that emergency managers should be collaborating with when it comes to intelligence gathering. They can get accurate information and images incredibly fast - there is no way we can replicate that (or would even want to). Media obviously receive the PTWC warning and broadcast these without an analysis of potential local impact so can do this in near-real time. I subscribe to the PTWC warnings and also the Global Disaster Alert and Co-ordination System warnings. In this case the first I knew was Paul Henry announcing it on Breakfast TV. The PTWC and GDACS warnings are also linked from the sidebar in this blog.

MCDEM has been clear that there are three levels of warning - natural where you feel the earthquake or see the sea rushing out (or rushing in), unofficial - media, family, friends and official warnings also promulgated via the media and agencies. The public are encouraged to react in an appropriate manner regardless of how they were alerted to the problem.

So what did we do as a Group? EOCs at Tararua and Horizons were activated. Horizons undertook the local response for Horowhenua, Manawatu and Rangitikei without the need to activate local EOCs for the initial response. Police and Fire were present in the Horizons EOC and assisted in decision making and response. SMS messages were sent to agencies via our WebSMS and the public via the Manawatu OPTN system.

Tararua undertook an evacuation of Akitio and Herbertville and a helicopter swept the coastline looking for people on the beach. Horizons had initiated a helicopter sweep of the west coast and ground crews from Fire were deployed to stop people going to the beach. The west coast flight was cancelled before it was completed as the warning cancellation was received from MCDEM.

If that's where it stopped, that would have been an excellent response! Unfortunately there was a fly in the ointment. Some SMS message were delayed in transmission - so here's the guts...

OPTN is a public service that subscribers pay for. We had about 358 people subscribed to the service. This was set up by Manawatu following the 2004 floods and had seen very little use since. Once public complaints started coming in of messages being received hours late and the local media contacted us to find out what was going on, I spoke with the company and advised that this is a level of service we could not support for public notifications.

WebSMS is a service we pay for. The company is based in Melbourne and they handled several hundred messages for us that day. We use this to advise agencies and not the public. There were also some significant delays in this service. Again, I've contacted the company to find out if its a service provider problem - but no. The messages were processed quickly (seconds to a few minutes) through their system to the NZ carriers. The delay unfortunately sits with the telcos in NZ.

I also experienced delays the following day when texting with my family - up to six hours in some cases (I'm sure we've all experienced that).

So what's the main lesson for me??? In future, we will be including the date time in the body of the message that goes out to an agency - this will use up space but will provide a check if a message is late in delivery. It has been our policy for a while now that warnings are passed to agencies verbally and that e-mail, fax and SMS messages are for heads-up and detail.

A full debrief of our response is being undertaken next week and a report will be sent to MCDEM and our Co-ordinating Executive Group.

That's volcanic!!

Today is the anniversary of the eruption sequence that began on Ruapehu in 1995. It seems appropriate that yesterday we had a meeting of the Central Plateau Volcanic Advisory Group. The CPVAG (which really rolls off the tongue) has met several times now since the the 18 March 2007 dam break lahar and is really the next generation for volcanic hazard research and planning co-ordination. The Group meets 6 monthly to discuss a range of issues and is divided into three focus groups for science, emergency planning and communications.

At yesterday's meeting, we were updated on recent volcanic activity (or lack thereof), some of the improvements to warning systems and recent research activities. The Group has all but signed off on the Volcanic Strategy and is starting to think about the Contingency Plan. This work is intended to build on the good work taken in preparation for the dam break lahar and to cover awider geographic area.

For memory sake, this video was shot by crazy cameraman (and all round adrenalin junkie) Geoff Mackley (good on you Geoff!). You see the video on YouTube - it's quite good!

Social Media and Technology Breakthroughs for H1N1 and Seasonal Flu Communications

The following webinar is being conducted on Thursday 24th September 07:00 - 08:00 NZST. Here is a link to the registration page.

Hear from leading social media, technology, crisis communications and health experts on quick, proven and cost-effective ways to communicate with the public, your emergency response team and government officials for seasonal flu and a potential H1N1 outbreak.

Panelist include Dr. Marsha Vanderford, Director of Emergency Communication Systems, CDC; David Stephenson, Principal, Stephenson Strategies; Nigel Snoad, Lead Capabilities Researcher, Microsoft Humanitarian Systems; and Phil Dixon, Business Product Manager, Google.

Who should attend? Public health officials, healthcare practitioners (physicians, nurses, emergency medical services), public safety responders (fire and police), emergency managers, and government communicators.

All in attendance will obtain innovative social media strategies and technology solutions for immediate implementation.

Cost to participate: FREE

The Center of Excellence for Risk and Crisis Communications at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. is pleased to co-host this special webinar to provide you with state-of-the-art social media and technology solutions. Co-hosts include the American Public Health Association (APHA), International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and the National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC).

West Coast Exercise ShakeOut

At 10:10 a.m. on Friday 18 September 2009, thousands of New Zealand West Coasters will participate in the regions largest earthquake drill ever! The purpose of the ShakeOut is to practice how to protect ourselves during earthquakes, and to get prepared at work, school, and home.

Everyone can participate - why not you? Check out the web site set up for this exercise here.

I think this is a great initiative and good luck to everyone on the Coast - check out the video they've had made - good job team!

What's with these calendars?

Eventually, the calendars below will roll off the screen - you can find them again by clicking on the link under important stuff. This is a little bit of an on-line experiment I must admit. By putting the calendars up in this form, we can update the calendar in real-time. We don't need to wait for changes to be published, and then passed on for putting up on the website.

Depending on the up take, it also means that anyone with permission can edit information contained in the calendars. The end goal here is to have a consolidated calendar that is updated in one place. If member councils choose to, they can have the calendar showing up on their website or blog too - the data will come from the same place so the calendars will all say the same thing (no out of date stuff on the sites).

Once the CDEM Group website is live, we'll have the calendars there too - there won't be any double or triple handling, just linking to the source. Let's see how it goes.

Meeting calendar

Training calendar

Its taken ages to come up with AEGIS

We've been planning a mapping portal to integrate near-real time data from agencies with static base data through a web page for a while now - I'm sure you've heard... For about the last month Adrienne (our BA) has been saying what are we going to call this thing???

Well... (trumpet flourish)... AEGIS MAP “Aegis” an ancient reference to a cloak or shield that symbolises protection by a higher authority.

AEGIS also stands for Agency Enhanced Geographic Information System.

So, we've talked about it, designed it, talked about it some more and redesigned it, tweeked it and talked about it some more. Told people we're doing it, blogged about it, made a website about it, got a cool name for it...

Can we build it??? YES... we can! (thanks Bob). Edward has returned from the US and is champing at the bit to start writing up the code. I'm sure that in the very near future we'll have a prototype to test drive. We'll keep you posted.

Group Plan milestone

The Joint Standing Committee met today and endorsed the draft CDEM Group Plan, we've been working on for the past 18 months, to go out for public consultation. For me this is a great benchmark and I'd like to thank everyone for the help they've provided in getting the Plan to this critical stage.

Next steps include a month for public consultation, followed by a hearing on the 16th October. We then send the proposed Plan down to the Minister for a bit of bedtime reading - he gets a month for that. The Plan then comes back and goes up for final approval on the 4th December.

If you'd like a copy of the draft Plan, you can get that here. We've also provided some guidance on requirements for the submission - there are a few basics we need but didn't want to go to the extreme of providing a form to fill in. You can pick up the submission requirements here.

The future of wireless technology

I was recently asked by a colleague (thanks Richard) if I could be the CDEM Groups' rep at this Ministry of Economic Development seminar. I thought cool... imagine going to the Sydney car show with the very latest in cool cars... all shiny and beaming, draped with appropriately attired support staff, big bangers alongside hybrids and the quirkiness of future transportation. Now put this in a tech setting - routers, mobile phones, convergent tech, gadgets and gizmos galore!

Now put on your very best Clarkson face... how wrong I was! Imagine instead a room full of mechanical engineers drooling over progress towards the flux capacitor, thermo-coupled double doofterised over-head underhangers and drive-by-wire architecture.

In real terms, my expectation of finding out about the consumer end of wireless technology developments was stretched well beyond even my comfort zone. Where we talk about web 2.o, these guys talk about web 4.0 (there are no wiki results for this), where we talk about a wireless router, these guys talk about MiMO, and where we speak English, these guys (and girls) speak an entirely different language. I did enjoy the surfer surfing the net though!

I thought I might learn a bit about the APCO 25, satellite stuff with IPSTAR and BGAN and possibly software to provide cross-band connectivity. Instead, we covered cognitive radio, the move of TV frequencies, SASRATS, WiMAX, frequency selective surfaces and much, much more - WOW!

Although there was no talk about BGAN, and femtocell was passed off as just a fad, the day was interesting and assured me that there are people thinking about not just tomorrow but 10-15 years into the future and putting policies in place and doing research we will be the beneficiaries of. It is nice to know that we are out performing the Aussies in this area at the moment too!

Video and presentations from this day will be available on the RSM web site in the near future

Vehicle donated to Manawatu Coastguard

Horizons issued a press release yesterday in regard to our donation... here it is.

Volunteers at the Manawatu Coastguard can now respond to incidents faster and drier thanks to the Horizons Emergency Management Group donation of a used vehicle.

The SsangYong ute was formerly owned by the Manawatu District Council (MDC) and was transferred to Horizons when the MDC contracted its emergency management services to the regional council.

The ute was not fully suitable for Horizons’ use and would have been tendered for sale. But when Horizons became aware of the Coastguard’s need for a vehicle the donation idea was suggested to the council’s executives.

Manawatu Coastguard President, Leighton Judd, says the ute is a great asset to them.

“It means we can make a far quicker response to incidents as we can tow our jet ski down the beach, instead of getting to the scene on our jet ski or on our boat. In some instances, especially at night, the ute will mean our response is far more efficient.”

Leighton Judd says the Coastguard had intended on fundraising to purchase a vehicle. The hard work involved with fundraising can now be focussed on purchasing radio equipment for the ute, as well a major project to buy a new Coastguard boat.

“All of our members are volunteers and up until now we have all used our private vehicles when necessary. We do a lot of support work for the surf lifesaving clubs on the Manawatu and Kapiti coastline and the ute will also be used to respond to swimmers and people in trouble in the sea."

Horizons Emergency Manager Officer, Ross Brannigan, says he is delighted that Horizons executive members agreed to donate the vehicle. There is an important working relationship between the council and the Coastguard, he said.

“Horizons has Harbourmaster responsibilities, and in circumstances like a marine oil spill or anything to do with maritime safety we need to call on the services of the Coastguard boat. Donating a vehicle has done a lot to cement excellent working relationships between us.”

Outcome of EMDO training

Well, the EMDO and EM staff training day went really well last week. It was a good opportunity to work our way through the activation procedures and practice everything we've talked about and documented.

I'm sure some of the things were new for a few of the team so this would have been a significant learning curve. We only had a couple of minor equipment hiccups but that just proves that having an IT duty officer is important too. William Gordon and

Alistair Williams helped out during the day to resolve any technical issues.

We also practiced send an SMS via our message media site - its really the first time

we've had the HorizonsEM user logged on in

several places at once. I think this fact is partly to blame (but that won't stop the shout) for Rosco sending an SMS to a rather random list... asking 'where's da emergency?' Not sure how that happened! Anyway Rosco - make mine a Tui!

We have also decided to use CIMS language in our accounts so we've now set up HorizonsPlanningIntel, HorizonsOperations and HorizonsLogistics accounts in Groove, gmail and Skype. The base account used in the Comms Room for generic e-mail and warnings is still HorizonsEM.

Latest e-bulletin

The latest e-Bulletin is now available from the MCDEM website here.

In this issue...

• Tribute to Mike Kennedy
• Murupara community builds resilience
• Canterbury to better connected
• Volunteer award for Nelson Response Team member
• West Coat Controllers Forum
• Council supports emergency management staff development
• Public Education update: Revised Stan launched
• CDEM Professional Development
• CDEM Research
• Submissions sought on draft business continuity standards
• Personal security and communications course
• MCDEM Lifelines update
• Earth science book wins award

EMDO training day

Tomorrow will be a full day for the Emergency Management Duty Officers and staff of Horizons Emergency Management Office. An extensive programme has been arranged for the team to work through the details for a cold start to EOC/ECC operations at Horizons. The day will include activation of all hardware and software that might be used in operations.

Each of the EMDOs is expected to be able to fully activate the EOC and support the Horizons Incident Controller and/or Group Controller without the support of any other EM staff. It's quite a big ask to do in slow time, let alone when the pressure of an event is upon us. We'll be practicing setting up the EOC, spreading our wings into the Compliance space, conference calls, Groove, useful websites and how to make the most of the wall monitors. Sending sms messages, preparing sitreps and arranging the first two shifts, using the BGAN, the new financial system and looking through the several emergency response documents we have will also be part of the day.

This training day is the first in a series of activation training days for EOC staff. Here, our expectation is that many of the staff that might be first into the EOC might be expected to perform any number of roles. Each Friday afternoon for about a month we'll be running training for batches of staff

Volcano short course

GNS Science and Massey University are again running their very successful Planning for a volcanic crisis short course. This year the course is being held at the
Mercure Hotel in Auckland on 23-24 September. An optional field trip will also visit Rangitoto Island on the 25th.

The course covers:

• The volcano problem
• Impacts and mitigation
• Monitoring and warning systems
• Two case studies
• Lahars and breakout flooding
• Discussions on crisis management
• Planning for volcanic crisis
• Learning from others, and
• So what can you do?

For more information about the course, you can download the brochure from here. You can also contact Daryl Barton on 04-570-1444 or d.barton@gns.cri.nz. The course costs $500 per person and the field trip is $100.

Mobile Command and HazMat

Mitchell Brown invited emergency managers and CEG members to visit one of the new NZFS command and hazmat vehicles as it was passing through Palmerston North yesterday. We've been hearing for a while now that the Fire Service is investing in 16 of these vehicles at around $1M a piece.

I've got to say, I'm impressed! The vehicle is well designed for its purpose and very well constructed. The tail-lifter on the back of the truck allows for quick removal of six large containers

of hazmat response equipment. This leaves a large open floor space for people to be briefed, whiteboards with status to be maintained and a very clever touch screen TV/monitor. The forward part of the unit has two work stations and quite a lots of the technology for patching radios and managing incidents.

On the outside of the vehicle there is a hydraulic mast for radio aerials, telescoping mast for the site camera and the IPStar satellite dish (clever enough to find the satellite on its own). The vehicle is stabilised to ensure a steady working platform. Total set up time was less than 10 minutes for one person.

Whilst this is a specialist platform for NZFS incident management there is provision for it to be used at other types of incidents. I suspect that due to its dual purpose though that this won't be left at incidents for extended periods of time unless there is a significant commitment by the Fire Service at the scene.

Any future developments we do with EOCs will take into account this significant investment by the Fire Service. Well done guys!

(Troy Gerbich and Tony Groome at the helm... whatever next?)

AirShelter on the way

The Group is soon to benefit from a new AirShelter. The shelter is in reality an inflatable tent and will be used routinely for promotional opportunities. The plan at this stage is to have the shelter ready for Disaster Awareness Week at the beginning of October. Banners will be attached to the outside of the shelter with our current hazard theme - storms. Inside there will be the core information on disaster preparedness and the CDEM Group. This time round there will also be a table inside with a weather station.

The shelter will also be a resource for emergencies too. Designed with a removable floor (to protect a crime scene) and IV line cables (for the ambos) the shelter can also be joined to the St John shelter if we need a larger shelter.

PNCC have also recently purchased a lightweight shelter and the combination of resources will give the Group a lot of flexibility for promotional activities in the future.

CDEM Group Plan another step closer

At today's meeting of the Co-ordinating Executive Group, the first draft of the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group Plan 2009-2011 was received and endorsed. There are a couple of minor tweeks to make before the Plan goes up to the Joint Standing Committee on 4th September and then out for public consultation on the 7th September.

The Public Education and Information Strategy was also endorsed by the CEG this morning so all-in-all it has been a pretty successful day.

Back on deck

Well, I've been away for a couple of weeks but the business just keeps on ticking!!!

The CEG agenda has gone out with the first draft of the CDEM Group Plan and Public Education and Information Strategy. We meet next week to work through these before they go up to the Joint Standing Committee.

On the hazards front, Ruapehu did a little belch. Fortunately, there was little effect from this event at the Crater Lake. GNS Science issued alert bulletin for this event. There was a pretty chunky earthquake down south but incredibly, very little damage. This event was as large as the 1931 earthquake! Anywhere else in the world, I'm sure there would have been an international response to a devastated area. Soon after the earthquake, a tsunami warning was issued by the PTWC. Again, we were lucky that a big wave was not generated. This one does bring home that the warning system is designed for distant source tsunami. It just takes time to work things out and then get plans initiated.

Finally, congratulations to members of the Volunteer Rural Fire Force in Levin. Many of the members graduated with their level 2 FRSITO certificates last night. Presentation of their certificates was made at a ceremony at the Horowhenua District Council by HDC Chief Execuitive David Ward and FRSITO Manager Leonce Jones.

Rangitikei Exercise

The Rangitikei gang took part in a small exercise last Friday to test facilities at the Emergency Operations Centre - yes despite some rumours, the EOC is still fully functional at the back of the Marton library.

The exercise was intended to be a tabletop exercise and just enough to test systems such as CDERS and re-familiarise key District Council staff with CDEM arrangements. The exercise has also provided me with a baseline for future improvements (and there are a few up my sleeve). We'll be working through the system improvements over the next several months and the staff will be called on to participate in some training courses.

Its certainly not all doom and gloom though (as evidenced by the photo), the level of participation was good and the experience in the room reassures me that if the balloon went up tomorrow we have a response capability. At the conclusion of the exercise, Paul ran through an abbreviated version of CIMS training for some of the staff who were unfamiliar with some of these processes. Thanks to the team for their participation.

Flu trends

Whilst browsing the internet tonight, I've stumbled across Google Flu trends. This is a graph that allows us to compare previous years with current Google flu trends. It's important to note that the graph shows the number of searches, not the number of cases! There is a strong correlation between the number of Google searches for 'flu' and the relative number of cases. Here's a link to the NZ page. Google trends is a pretty powerful tool - I wonder if there are other things we could track and learn from?

Trembly Turangi

The Turangi-Tokaanu area seems to be going through a bit of a shaky time at the moment. A swarm of small earthquakes has been recorded over the past few weeks with events today ramping up slightly. The largest of these was this morning and measured M4.4. All the quakes seem to be quite shallow. The area is known for its geothermal activity and when we were up there a few weeks ago, steam was evident around this location.

Details of recent earthquakes can be found on the GeoNet website. I dumped a few of the locations of today's events into Google Earth just to see where things plot up. Note that some of the locations represent more than one event - one of the locations is where three of the events come back to (give or take a bit for rounding errors I guess).

Here is a link to the Get Ready Get Thru information for earthquakes.

Pandemic update

Novel Influenza A (H1N1) 09 is the very catchy name that swine flu now goes by. I've been tracking developments with the current outbreak and believe our level of response at this time is appropriate. It's important to keep in mind that we've only had one confirmed case in the region. What this means is that we are still in the phase where health officials are still trying to stop the spread of the virus in our community. This is different to the main centres where community transmission is happening.

The Welfare Advisory Group met last week and have also just received national guidance on welfare assistance for this pandemic. We're not expecting things to be overwhelming on the welfare front if the virus continues to behave as it is. We've also been circulating NHCC and other updates via Groove to Group members and the occasional e-mail to our distribution list. I've also started attending the MidCentral DHB briefings on a more regular basis.

We did have a little bit of a flurry in the office this week as a contact of a possible case was sent home showing flu like symptoms. We've cracked open the pandemic kits and have further promoted good practice to minimise the risks for our staff and visitors.

So, we'll keep monitoring the situation and if necessary ramp up our response either in support of the health efforts or for co-ordinating welfare assistance.

Blog report

It's hard to believe that the blog has been running for just over a year now. My first post was on the 5th June 2008. The whole idea was to make life a little easier for me in getting some of the messages out to anyone who is interested. Ged Shirley (my boss and chair of our CEG) suggested doing a regular newsletter to keep punters informed on Group Plan review progress. To be honest, this sounded like more work. So the question was: how do I do this without creating a rod for my own back? It took a few days, but then I figured out that we should try a blog!

While there was a little hesitation, the Group has trusted me enough to publish the blog without moderation. I'm careful to make it clear if the views being expressed are mine or have been agreed by the Group. So big thumbs up to the Group for this!!

I've been tracking the blog using Google Analytics since it started and have reported to the CEG from time-to-time on how things are going. Here's a summary of the first year and a bit...

• 1,011 unique visitors
• 3,958 page views
• Most searched = Wanganui camera bar
• Visits by country (46 in all) = NZ (1,852), US (87), UK (40), Aus (19), Canada (14)... right down to Jamaica (1)
• 48% of visitors are one-time visits, 25% though have visited between 9 and 200 times
• Apart from one-timers, most visitors are on site between 3-10 minutes per visit.

So - hopefully you have found the blog useful. If you have any suggestions for items you would like to see - just let me know. Finally, a big thankyou to those who have supported the site and provided feedback (either on the site or to me directly)... CHEERS!

Akitio alive and well!

Well, it might have been a while in the making, but the latest webcam is now up and running. The Akitio camera is working from the boat club at the southern end of the beach. This view is one of the early shots from the camera. The transmission speeds are excellent and the site provides us with a good view of the road. The idea is that we will start getting a better handle on the effects of waves on the local community. Factors such as wave height, swell direction and tidal conditions all influence the end result. There have been instances when logs were thrown up on the road.

Here is the link to the camera on the Horizons Regional Council website. We may have a few issues with lens flare due to the beach running basically north/south - but we'll see how we go.

Social media - what's in it for us?

I've been thinking about how to get the most out of some of the social media sites, especially Twitter. I think this will become more relevant as time moves on with the Tehran riots, San Diego fires and Sichuan earthquake being examples of Twitter coming to the fore. There are a couple of quite a good videos on Ted about this… check out Evan Williams and Clay Shirky.

I'm still figuring this out myself... but Twitter is a social networking tool that allows you to share what is important to you with friends and family. Recently developments in Twitter mean that it is easy to find out what people are saying on Twitter. Twitter uses a thing called a hash tag to make searching, RSS feeds and such like more useful. A hash tag might look something like #NZCD that preceeds the message. If you subscribed tothe tag #NZCD on Twitter or your RSS feed you would be notified of all the messages that include that tag. You can also imagine that a #NICD or #SICD (North and South Island) hash tag would make it a little easier during widespread events for EM people to keep tabs on what's going on. If we could couple this with a geo-reference then we might be able to aggregate tweets (messages sent via Twitter) to specific localities.

The reason I'm putting this on the blog, rather than just doing it, is that ideally CDEM Groups would have a consistent approach to Twitter. It could be something we include in our promotions or messages during an emergency (follow us on Twitter with the hash tag…). I'm not suggesting additional work in the EOC/ECC but a means of intelligence sharing that can either come from the community or from the CDEM authorities. I'm interested in your feedback on this one.

New stuff coming

The team has started looking at the new CDEM Group web site. Glen Young is Horizons' new Webmaster and is bringing a number of exciting ideas to the camp. Once we've got a concept developed, we'll be taking it out to the EMOs and CEG members for refinement.

We know that the site needs to be informative, current, and quickly updated (especially during events), but it also needs to look good, be easy to navigate and be modern. As well as the usual preparedeness information there are a number of cool things we're looking to include. Things like RSS feeds, inter-operability with Facebook, Bebo and other social networking sites, Twitter functionality, GIS map interface, web-cams, blogs and vlogs, tech-wikis and all sorts of other cool tools.

One of the global developments that is still just over the horizon is Google Wave. Although the developer tools are now available, Wave is not being launched by Google until later this year. We will look to take advantage of Google Wave as soon as we can. In my view this advancement is going to be one of the most significant advancements we've seen in recent years. Although the video is quite long (1 hr 20min), it is certainly mind-expanding.

Group Plan CEG workshop

The Coordinating Executive Group held what I feel was a very successful workshop yesterday to review the first draft of the revised CDEM Group Plan. Roughly half the Plan had been seen by the CEG at previous meetings and workshops however there was still quite a chunk of work to get through.

Brendan Morris facilitated the workshop to give us all an opportunity to focus on the discussions rather than running the workshop. Evan Lloyd also participated in the workshop to provide the background to the hazard and risk analysis prepared by him to support the Plan.

Several hours of good healthy discussion later and there was general agreement that we are making good progress and that the Plan is still on track for approval at the December meeting of the Joint Standing Committee. Before that can happen, there is still quite a bit of work to do and consultation to be undertaken. We'll be working to make the adjustments recommended by the CEG over the next few weeks before it comes back for endorsement as the draft CDEM Group Plan for public consultation.

Anyway... so far, so good.

EMOs work out a plan...

The EMOs had a workshop on the first draft of the CDEM Group Plan today ahead of the CEG workshop next week.

I'm happy to say that the focus was on detail rather than any big issues that had been missed or significant changes in direction. The session focused on sections of the Plan that hadn't been seen before and was quite pragmatic. While we played around with the numbers a wee bit on the risk analysis, the general consensus was that we were pretty well right with river flooding, earthquake and human pandemic coming out on top.

We also had the opportunity to talk about the Triennial Business Plan and what this might look like. Given that our budgets are already set for next year, we agreed a good starting place would be tabling and comparing current activities - we'll do this at the next EMO meeting.

All in all, good effort today guys!

Update on activities

Well, its been a while since my last post (not that last post!),we really have been head down... Paul Chaffe has joined the team and been going through orientation to be our new EMO /Rural Fire Officer. Rosco has been attempting to become an oil spill manager, Brent has been extracting subsidies from the NRFA, Evan has been working on bylaws review and the risk profile part of the Group Plan, and I have been busy completing the first draft of the Group Plan.

The Plan will be workshopped by EMOs and CEG in the next few weeks then we will have a bit of time to complete a number of supporting documents before it goes back to CEG for endorsement to go to the Joint Standing Committee. Things are on track for a 5 December approval of our new Plan.

The new team has taken a few days to look at the current Business Plan and also where we are going in the next year to so. I've scared them with Project Noah - a proposal to seriously attack some of the response deficiencies we've identified. We've also managed to squeeze in a little bit of 'boat training'. Brent thinks he's clever being the only one to get in touch with the local wildlife.

Trans-Tasman CDEM agreement

Picked this up via Twitter and Radio NZ...

A trans-Tasman agreement being signed on Thursday will make it quicker and easier for Civil Defence in New Zealand and Australia to help each other in a national disaster.
The agreement between the Civil Defence and the Emergency Management Ministry and the Australian Attorney-General's department will see a 24-hour hotline maintained between the countries if either needs help.
The agreement formalises arrangements which allow Civil Defence staff and materials into either country in an emergency.
Given New Zealand's hazards and isolation, ministry director John Hamilton says it is important to have support on hand and ready to help if needed.
He says few countries can respond on their own to a national disaster.

World Conference on Disaster Management

Here's a plug for the Conference coming up in October. More details on their site here.

The World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM) Sydney, Australia offers a unique experience, bringing together experts, practitioners, certifying bodies, service and product suppliers for Emergency Management, Business Continuity and other Disaster Management disciplines. The WCDM Summit Series will be a two day event replicating our hugely successful Canadian show dealing with international and regional issues affecting Australia.

The format will consist of 4 Plenarys, 12 concurrent sessions, 3 Advanced Master Workshops combined with Round Table Discussions, Panel Discussions and Networking Receptions with the Sponsors.

The past 18 years have seen tremendous development in not only the number of delegates at WCDM but also the demand for such an event globally. There has been an overwhelming increase in the number of key decision-makers, top corporate executives and government representatives interested in exploring the latest developments and already-proven industry-related products and services.

The WCDM recognises that showcasing the best in industry-related products and services will help reach our goal of ensuring prepared and resilient small businesses, corporations and communities.

Congratulations Noel Mingins

A huge congratulations to Noel on graduating from Massey this week with his Graduate Diploma in Emergency Management. Noel hasn't been particularly forthcoming with photos of the ceremony but I'm sure that all members of the Group will join me in passing on our congratulations.

As a course of part-time study, it takes several years to complete the Diploma. It certainly shows commitment to the programme to make it all the way through.

For more information about the Diploma course, you can check it out here.

May edition of e-Bulletin now on-line

For the very latest from MCDEM and the sector, check out the latest e-Bulletin here. Its great to see we get a mention in relation to Hastings' success at a recent expo... they borrowed the earthquake cubes and were voted second-equal best display by the public. It shows the advantage in being reasonably generic in the display material produced for use across the Group.

Head down... on the Group Plan

Well, we are head down on the Group Plan at the moment. We're making a concerted effort to finish the draft of the Plan in time for the next CEG meeting on 16 June. We've opted not to mini-workshop these but draft them out in line with the Director's Guide.

I've just spent some time on the Monitoring and Evaluation chapter and taken the opportunity to have a close look at Jo Horrocks' capability assessment tool. To be honest, the work that has been done by MCDEM on this front looks pretty good. I think we'll find the tool useful for benchmarking where we are at but also identifying how we conpare to the rest of NZ. One of the things that has stood out for me is the desparate need to get a baseline of preparedness data. Quite how we'll do this is not yet determined but I'm working on it.

Evan has made good progress on the risk profile material and that chapter will be the focus over the next few days. Brendan has been working on recovery and that will be our focus in a few weeks.

I'm also looking at the Triennial Business Plan. Given that we don't want to include outputs on the Group Plan this time round, I've been adding the work projects and activities to the Business Plan as we go. I think our challenge will be developing a sense of urgency in achieving some of these outcomes. Perhaps more on this thought later.

Crowd sourced information

Crowd sourced information is a concept I recently learned about listending to a TedTalk. This is an idea that is worth exploring - filtering information from the 'crowd' e.g. text messages people send, to gather intelligence about what's going on out there. Often, agencies are overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there and important things are missed.

I'm interested in seeing if others think we can expand on this concept in the New Zealand context and how this might happen. Check out this short TedTalk video.

Flying pigs?

Well, it might not be avian influenza but the plans we made for 'bird flu' are now coming home to roost. Like many organisations, today we blew the dust off our pandemic plans and checked our resources in anticipation of Swine Flu. I'm glad to say that things seemed to be pretty well thought out and good to go.

The reassuring thing from my point of view is that there hasn't been a flap about what to do... we made plans and we are following them - without changing them on the fly. I'm sure that when this is all over, there will be a review of arrangements and procedures - that too is procedure!

Today, we set up a Groove workspace for Swine Flu, had a few calls with the District Health Board and communicated with our CDEM Group. We've also fired up all the computers (and updated their virus protection) and put arrangements in place for CODE RED. So... tomorrow's another day, let's see what it brings.

For the latest official updates, check out the Ministry of Health web site.

Hydro boys hard at work

We've reported a number of things on the blog that the hydro team have had a bit of input to. I spotted the guys browsing through some photos of the Tangiwai webcam installation this morning and thought it worth sharing with you.

The site is clearly in a rather hostile environment (not talking about the military maneuvers) and making the site robust is quite important. Remember its out there 24/7 and we expect it to work regardless of conditions.

The other thing that this photo brought home for me... was how much 'stuff' the hydro boys carry around. So much so, they can't fit it all inside and need roof pods. No wonder you get the big trucks guys! I know I keep promising it, but the Akitio cam is getting closer now - watch this space!!!

e-Bulletin

The latest edition of the e-Bulletin is available here.

More BGAN info

A few people have been asking me more about BGAN. Here's a link to the Inmarsat video page that has a couple of good promo videos. A word of warning though... don't try this with dial-up!

Techno pause

In the past few years, I've gained a bit of a reputation as someone who likes to take full advantage of technology. This comes with the usual Gadget Man, Wannabe Geek and Techie titles... and I've weathered those. Truth is, we've come to a point in our development where I think we now have the tools (not toys) available for us to do a professional job. There is still the GIS web portal project and the CDEM Group website to roll off the production line, but that will take a little while yet. It is my intention to now consolidate what we have and make sure the training is in place to take full advantage of the tools. Here is a brief summary of what we've introduced...

Groove - is the Microsoft collaboration software that allows us to synchronise information across organisations. Groove is used by the United Nations in the harshest environments and certainly suits our Group operations. Groove has day-to-day applicability too we can become familiar with it outside of emergencies. Full implementation of Groove across the CDEM Group members is yet to be achieved but we are getting there slowly. The Horizons team has this fully up and running now.

Skype - free voice over IP software - we get to make free telephone and video calls to other Skype users. Some IT people freak at the use of this software but we have restricted installation to the EM laptops.

Google - Google Earth, Gmail, Google sites, Google Reader, Google docs, iGoogle and the whole Google suite have become central to an EM capability if the Horizons servers drop off-line for some reason. HorizonsEM@gmail.com is now the generic address that subscribes to warnings from several agencies. This is a back-up to our internal addresses subscribing.

Mobile office - we have put together a capability to operate outside of the Horizons environment. This includes a kit with three laptops and a printer/scanner/fax with all the connectivity options. This is partnered with a second kit with a small business PABX for a fully functional office telephone system. The EM team members have also gone to laptops, rather than dumb terminals, configured the same as the mobile office laptops.

BGAN - with the introduction of the Broadband Global Area Network service provided by Inmarsat, we've purchased an Explorer 700 terminal. This will enable us to connect the mobile office to the internet and telephony if the normal terrestrial systems are either out of service or just out of range. The terminal is a high-end product that will allow fast and reliable transmission of all forms of data.

EOC laptops - with the increasing use of technology, we found we were using the mobile office in the EOC. As it wasn't intended for that, we've introduced nine eeePCs (small laptops) to work in the Horizons EOC. These are configured the same as the mobile office and can be used outside the EOC if required.

GPS camera - the GPS enabled camera allows us to take photos in the field and transmit them back to the office in near-real time.

Data-over-radio - for the cost of a cable and a little bit of re-programming, we've set up our CDEM Group radios to be able to transmit packets of text. This is a real backup to the backup but will save time reading long sitreps out over the air.

WebSMS - I recently posted about this and the service is working out well.

SmarTrak - the ability to track many of the Council vehicles using cellular GPS services.

SPOT - satellite personal trackers were introduced when the old 243MHz personal locator beacons went off-line. These have a day-to-day functionality the the old beacons didn't have. You can confirm that you are OK and where you are. The system sends an SMS and e-mail to people you pre-select. If you need help there's that option too... if you need emergency assistance, there's a 911 button - this goes to the Rescue Co-ordination Centre.

Spidertracks - similar to SmarTrak but we only have a single unit. This unit can be moved around vehicles and is ideally suited to extended operations in areas where these is no cellphone coverage. Spidertracks is a satellite based GPS tracking system.

Webcams - we've introduced a few new webcams in the region... Whanganui River Mouth, Tangiwai, Opiki and one still to come at Akitio (really soon hopefully). The coastal cams are for storm surge observations, the Tangiwai cam for lahar and river height obs, Opiki is the floodway across SH 56. The Whanganui cam had nearly 1000 unique hits over Easter weekend alone.

Freeview - with a couple of Freeview decoders introduced into the EOC, we can now monitor news items on monitors in the EOC and adjoining office. This will help us gain intelligence that media are gathering. There's nothing like a bit of news footage to put things into context.

Green RIG - the Council's education vehicle is also fitted out for alternative EOC functions. Aerials have been fitted to the RIG and we've tested the mobile office equipment in the RIG to ensure everything works.

So... that's what we've been up to - and you thought we were twiddling our thumbs! Oh.. let's not forget the really cool blog we've started!