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!