Calendar updates

Well... it has been a while. The calendar of meeting dates and training was having a bit of a Google-wide hissy fit but it seems that the Google geeks have sorted that out now. The meeting dates for 2011 have mostly been entered into the meeting calendar now. EMO and Rural Fire meetings are yet to be added.

Things have certainly been busy in recent weeks with budget preparations and end of year wrap ups. I will be away for January so the blog is unlikely to be updated during this time.

Tune in again next year and I'll keep you posted on things such as the launch of the EMIS, training activities, relocation of the Group ECC, Ministry stuff and other interesting little tidbits.

In the meantime, remember that **it happens anytime, anywhere... be prepared for that. Keep some stuff in the car if your on holiday (nut bars and water), keep some cash handy for when the EFTPOS falls over and most of all, enjoy the summer!

Shane and the Emergency Management Team

Green RIG whereabouts

Many of you will know that the award winning Green RIG spends its time on the road educating our communities about environmental issues. In the recent theme change natural hazards have become more of a talking point. One wall of the Green RIG is dedicated to natural hazards.

The photo shows students learning about the effects of development in flood plains... something we know a little bit about.

The Green RIG team publish a calendar on the Green RIG website here. Over the next couple of months, the Green RIG will be in Palmerston North, Carterton and Wanganui.

Liquefaction... what does it mean for us?

Since the Canterbury earthquake, we have been fielding a few calls about liquefaction in our region. There have been a few good articles in local papers, but here is a small excerpt from our Risk and Responsibilities Report (the lifelines report).

'Liquefaction is the loss of strength of unconsolidated materials during shaking, with the expulsion of water. Heavy objects such as tanks may sink, list, or float if liquefaction of their foundation or surrounding materials occurs. Sandy layers, up to several metres below the ground may liquefy provided there is sufficient confining pressure, and may cause sand/water fountaining at the ground surface. Liquefaction is commonly responsible for lateral spreading along riverbanks. Unconsolidated, water saturated sandy material is a prerequisite for liquefaction, so areas prone to this hazard tend to coincide with those prone to amplification of shaking and settlement.'

In our region, it is the west coast strip that is most susceptible to liquefaction. The diagram also shows known earthquake faults.

Get Ready Week... underway already

OK, so we're a bit early... that's typical of us though!

This year's theme for Get Ready Week (formerly known as Disaster Awareness Week) is tsunami. That fits nicely with the national tsunami exercise on the 20th October. New banners have been made for our AirShelter and a CDEM Group tsunami brochure prepared and printed. We've bought survival items to display in the AirShelter and have the new video interviews with Kiwis who survived the Samoa earthquake and tsunami last year.

Next thing you know, Canterbury have a massive earthquake and a significant civil defence response. Closer to home, we have more than our fair share of rain resulting in evacuations, flood gate operations and an awful lot of soggy ground! We've now operated the new Makino and Moutoa flood control gates twice in two weeks. I think its a good guess that people will have questions about earthquakes and floods while we are out there in the community.

To help answer some of the questions, we dusted off the earthquake cubes from a couple of years ago. Each cube in the display (numbered 4-8) represents the amount of energy released in an earthquake. The very small cube represents a Richter scale 4 event and the big cube a Richter scale 8. We'll also be printing off some more Makino brochures for the Fielding display.

The Get Ready Week roadshow is in the following places...

5-7 October Levin at Horowhenua District Council

8 October Feilding in the Square

11 October Taihape New World

12 October Marton New World and Ohakune District Council Service Centre

13 October Palmerston North in the Square

14 October Danevirke at the Warehouse

15 October Wanganui as part of the Health Wellbeing and Fitness expo at the Memorial Hall

Doing our bit to help

A few familiar faces from Palmerston North converged on the National Crisis Management Centre to assist in co-ordinating the response to the M7.1 earthquake in Canterbury. Braden Austin was called in to undertake the role of Lifeline Utility Coordinator, Jock Robinson in logistics support and me (Shane Bayley) in planning/intelligence support. I don't think Jock even knew I was taking his pic.

As it happened, we bumped into other (former and current) CEG members from the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group... Murray Mills in his Ministry of Health role and Stewart Brown from NZ Defence Force.

I left the NCMC yesterday morning to return home because of flooding so it might not have been much, but every little bit helps I'm sure. Making a professional contribution and gaining experience during real events is an important part of participating in the sector.

Working on the website

Well, it's taken a while but I've been working on the new CDEM Group website with Glen today. We are making progress and will be doing a 'soft launch' of the site really soon so that the Emergency Management Officers can have an opportunity to build on the content.

We are still struggling with a nice URL for the site and despite that fact that there have been a few good ideas floated, we are still stuck with www.mwcdemg.govt.nz I know - it's a stunner. If you have any cool ideas for a URL for the Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence Emergency Management Group - please, let us know.

We hope to do a launch of the site later in the year and will start promoting it as soon as we can.

Recovery Manager's Forum

Recovery Managers in the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group will be given an opportunity to meet and discuss a range of recovery issues for the Group. In addition, some of the issues that will come out of Exercise Tangaroa can be discussed, even though two of the eight local authorities don't have any coastline.

Recovery Managers tend to be forgotten a little, or lumped in with Controllers when we do something for them. This forum will focus on recovery and the advances that have been made in recovery since the 2004 floods, which tend to be the benchmark around these parts. The forum will be on the 4th November, which is after Tangaroa and before the Ministry's Recovery Manager's Workshop in December.

Keeping an eye on river height alarms

Horizons Regional Council has for many years now been issuing river height alarms to subscribers through an automated telephone system. Recent developments in mapping capability have now enabled staff to monitor when and where the alarms are being dialed out.

The system is intended as an in-house viewer with low level alarms show up as a blue diamond, alarms that the Operations Duty Officer receives are orange triangles and alarms that the Emergency Management Duty Officer receives are red stars. At a glance, we can see where the areas of concern are.

In addition to this basic information, links within the 'fly-out' take you to the public hydrograph (visible to the public via the Horizons website) and a list of alarm level subscribers showing when they were called, whether they acknowledged the alarm or not and their name and telephone number (only available to staff).

This is the sort of technology that helps duty officers keep an eye on what's going on. I'll certainly be keeping this window open over the weekend.

Second wave of H1N1

This from MidCentral DHB:

New Zealand is experiencing the second wave of Pandemic A (H1N1) 2009. Influenza activity is continuing to increase, but so far it is looking more like a seasonal flu wave than the 2009 pandemic wave. Areas in which there were fewer cases and/or hospitalisations in 2009 appear to be experiencing higher rates than others regions so far this winter.

The great majority of positive influenza swabs are still either Pandemic H1N1 or influenza A – un-subtyped (most likely Pandemic H1N1). The nature of the virus remains unchanged and is still sensitive to antiviral medication.

Key messages in the NZ response continue to focus on:

• getting vaccinated against seasonal influenza which includes protection against swine flu: there is still time but act quickly
• washing and drying hands frequently, covering coughs and sneezes and staying at home if you are sick: a new media campaign has commenced
• phoning for medical advice early (GP or Healthline on 0800 611 116) for anyone with symptoms of influenza, to be assessed for antiviral medicine and other treatment, particularly if they have underlying health conditions. This is also important for pregnant women, who appear to be at particular risk of more severe illness.

Cases of influenza like illness in the Manawatu are still below baseline level although this has increased in recent weeks. Schools are currently reporting increases in absenteeism and they are being monitored weekly by Public Health.

For further information go to the MoH website.

CDEM Resilience Fund on the way

Director John Hamilton has recently written to all local authorities outlining plans for a contestable fund. The contents of the letter are...

"I am writing to you to advise of the establishment of the Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Resilience Fund that will support the development of civil defence emergency management capability in local government. The Minister of Civil Defence has approved an arrangement that will replace the previous reimbursement by the central government of a proportion of local authority civil defence emergency management expenditure. The funds allocated will now be directed towards local authority led projects that demonstrate a contribution towards resilience and address identified sector priorities. The goal is to ensure the allocation provides maximum value towards enhancing resilience, achieves a more strategic focus, and encourages collaboration across the CDEM Groups and local authorities.

Since 1966 the government has provided to local authorities a subsidy to support the development of civil defence capability. Recently, the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management has overseen the distribution of these funds to local authorities on a pro rata basis: all local authorities were refunded a percentage of their total civil defence emergency management expenditure. A review of the allocation of the subsidy determined that this approach was delivering poor value for money. On that basis, the Minister of Civil Defence agreed that the subsidy should be replaced with a contestable fund process that the allocation of funds would be linked to demonstrated improvements in civil defence emergency management and community resilience.

The process for the CDEM Resilience Fund

The Ministry has therefore developed a process for the management of the CDEM Resilience Fund that is outlined in the attached document. The allocation of the fund to projects will be guided by the priorities identified by the sector, identified gaps in the sector, the value to the wider CDEM sector, ability to deliver, and the value for money of the proposed deliverables. The Ministry will monitor the delivery of the projects and support collaboration across local authorities and CDEM Groups in undertaking projects.

To determine the priorities for the allocation of the CDEM Resilience Fund, we will establish a forum of the 16 Chairs of the Coordinating Executive Groups. I wish to hold this forum in October to enable the chairs to discuss possible priorities and areas for collaboration for the 2011/12 financial year onwards. It will provide the opportunity to discuss the strategic challenges facing CDEM across the nation and provide the opportunity for the CDEM Groups to discuss areas of possible cooperation. I will be contacting each of the 16 Chairs directly to discuss their attendance at this forum.

Once the forum of CEG Chairs has determined the priorities for the forthcoming round of the fund, they will be communicated to all local authorities and the CDEM Group offices to enable the early development of proposals. An independent evaluation committee will review the proposals against the criteria established by the CEG Chair Forum. It will also investigate the possible mergers of proposals to enhance collaboration and maximise the benefit gained. The evaluation committee will consist of members of CDEM partner agencies.

Transitional arrangements for 2010/11

The full CDEM Resilience Fund process will operate for the allocation in the 2011/12 financial year. The extended timeframe for the process of selection cannot be implemented for this financial year and a transitional arrangement will be required for 2010/11.

Local authorities are therefore requested to apply for funding for projects in the CDEM area by 10 October. No strategic priorities will be set for this financial year to rank the applications. The evaluation committee will also not seek to merge or link similar projects in this round. Proposals can be supported by a multiple of local authorities or CDEM Group(s). However, that will be based on the initiative of local authorities involved. As long as the proposals are compatible with the principles and criteria for eligibility outlined in the guideline for the CDEM Resilience Fund (attached) and are within the proposed allocation for that local authority, the Ministry will approve the allocation.

To simplify the process for the transitional period, a proposed funding amount for local authorities is proposed. This is to provide a guide for the consideration of proposals and simplify the process for deciding on funding allocation. Proposals may exceed that amount, but then approval will be dependent on the availability of funding.

The proposed funding amount for local authorities is $9,000 per authority with the exception of the new amalgamated Auckland Council allocated up to $72,000, and each of the other unitary authorities (Marlborough, Nelson-Tasman, Gisborne, and Chatham Islands) being proposed $30,000. Authorities can make joint applications through which they can combine their proposed funding amount.

The way ahead

The CDEM Resilience Fund provides a mechanism for the local government CDEM sector to collaboratively identify priorities and establish joint projects to maximise the benefits gained from the subsidy provided by the government. I appreciate that this approach will also place an administrative burden on those involved and inevitably there will be teething problems with the new system. However, I believe that this approach will pay increasing dividends as the process becomes embedded and areas of collaboration are identified.

Yours sincerely,

John Hamilton

Director"

Ministry publishes tsunami videos

On 29 September 2009 a deadly tsunami hit the South Pacific, claiming over 180 lives in Samoa, Tonga and American Samoa. The tsunami was triggered by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake at 06:48, just south of Samoa, and arrived within minutes. There was no time for an official warning. Many lives were saved because people recognised the natural warning signs of a tsunami and were able to get away quickly to a safe area.

In these video clips, New Zealanders who survived the tsunami share their experiences in the hope that it will help others have a better understanding of what happens during a tsunami, and how acting quickly can save lives.

Tsunami - When minutes count: Part 1

Tsunami - When minutes count: Part 2

There are more video interviews on the MCDEM website here.

Wellington Earthquake Initial Response Plan

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management has just released the Response Plan.

A major earthquake in the Wellington region is one of the worst scenarios for a natural hazard disaster that could be faced by New Zealand. This is due in part to Wellington’s population density, it being the seat of government, its economic importance, and its role as a key transport hub. In addition, a major earthquake in the Wellington region is likely to severely restrict the ability of authorities to coordinate and control the national response. In most other scenarios the ability of authorities to coordinate and control the response would remain largely intact.

The plan provided in this document has been created to show the concept of operations for the response to a major Wellington earthquake. It shows agreed roles and responsibilities for agencies participating in the response. The plan ensures that the national level response is co-ordinated, can be activated immediately and automatically, and is as effective and as efficient as possible within the constraints of this event.

Here is the link to a copy of the Plan

Ministry praises region’s emergency response planning

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management Capability Assessment Report has commended the Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Group’s emergency response.

The report carried out in March 2010 states that: “the Manawatu-Wanganui Group is a model of how CDEM Group members should work together to achieve common goals. The benefits and efficiencies of doing so are evident, in terms of shared resources, peer support among Emergency Management Officers, coordinated planning, and development of transferable skills and training. Given the Group has eight local authorities and a significant geographic area, it is a credit to them that they have been able to develop this sense of cooperation and collaborative working – by no means a given in other CDEM Groups.”

The CDEM Group is based on regional boundaries and combines 8 x councils (Horizons, Ruapehu, Wanganui, Rangitikei, Manawatu, Tararua, Palmerston North, and Horowhenua), emergency services and health boards. It takes a highly coordinated approach to emergency management in the region.

CDEM Joint Committee chairman, Garrick Murfitt said the report is a pleasing reflection of the hard work and dedication of the Group.

“Public safety is paramount and responding to emergencies is a core function of the regional, city and district councils. It’s important that our response capability is robust and this report confirms that we are well on track,” says Mr Murfitt.

The report identifies three areas where improvements could be made: regional welfare coordination, recovery planning and business continuity.

Manager of the Groups Emergency Management Office, Shane Bayley says these areas will form the key focus for the Group over the next year.

globe Magazine

GNS Science have just released issue no. 1 of globe Magazine. A very cool looking publication available online and in pdf (in case your internet connection isn't too whizzy).

In this issue, stories cover:

• Drilling deep: Canterbury Basin drill cores hold climate clues
• Ancient discovery: Dinosaur footprints found in Nelson
• Seismic software: The next generation tunes into our software
• Unique accelerator: New accelerator a vital asset for NZ science
• Vanuatu volcano: Expert advice on Vanuatu volcano
• Northland bounty: Positive signs for Reinga Basin
• Inside knowledge: Geo-forensics - detecting environmental fraud
• Tsunami watch: Ground truthing the tsunami models
• Discover ancient worlds: Geology summer school rates highly with kids and parents

Declaration forms to change

This from the Director of Civil Defence...

In January 2010, the Department of Internal Affairs completed a review of declarations of a state of emergency, and identified the need for a number of technical changes to the forms for declaring, extending, or terminating a state of emergency, as prescribed in the CDEM Regulations.

The amendments ensure that the prescribed forms are as “ready-to-use” as possible during a civil defence emergency, and help reduce the likelihood of errors and the risk of liability issues arising from the declaration process. In addition to providing separate forms for declaring a state of national and local emergency, the new forms:

· require a description of the emergency for which the declaration is being made;

· make clearer provision to state the time and date on which a declaration comes into force, is extended, or is terminated;

· provide an easy method for the person making the declaration to indicate that he or she is authorised to declare under the CDEM Act 2002; and

· include notes that explain how to calculate correctly the maximum duration of a state of emergency, and draw attention to certain requirements such as the need for a declaration to be publicly notified and published in the Gazette as soon as practicable.

An electronic copy of the new forms will be forwarded to your Group Emergency Management Officer. Please ensure that all of the existing forms within your Group and the local authority members are replaced with the new forms by 31 July 2010. I suggest you also check and replace the old forms that may be in the CDEM Group Plan or any individual territorial authority member’s civil defence plans, and held by CDEM officials and those authorised to declare. You might find it valuable to ensure that controllers and those authorised to declare are made aware of the changes in the form.

Section 73(2) of the CDEM Act provides that the validity of a declaration is not affected by the inclusion of any additional information not specified in the appropriate form prescribed in the regulations. Therefore the CDEM Group or the territorial authority members can include their logos or other relevant information in the new forms they use.

Regional Disaster Prevention Exchange

This from Voxy...

Nichola Costley, an Emergency Management Officer from Greymouth, is heading to Japan this month to represent New Zealand at a regional disaster prevention exchange.

Nichola was selected as one of twenty disaster prevention professionals from East-Asia, Australia and New Zealand to spend two weeks discussing best practices from around the region.

Nichola works for the West Coast Civil Defence Emergency Group and hopes to utilize knowledge gained in Japan upon her return.

"New Zealand is faced with similar hazards to Japan - earthquakes, tsunami, flooding - and experiencing the prevention methods utilized in a much better resourced country will be an excellent opportunity to identify possible options for our own future resilience work."

Nichola arrives in Tokyo on 21 June and begins by presenting New Zealand's country report to the other participants. While in the capital, she will take a field trip to learn firsthand about the city's flood control measures.

Participants will then travel to Kobe where they will discuss pioneering disaster prevention techniques developed after the city's 1995 earthquake which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale.

During the final leg of the programme, Nichola will visit Niigata Prefecture where she will learn about responses to the earthquake and floods that have hit the region in recent years.

The all-expenses-paid "Disaster Prevention and People" exchange is funded by the Japanese Government and is part of the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange of Students and Youth (JENESYS) Programme. JENESYS has a budget of NZ$315 million and will invite approximately 6,000 youths to Japan over a five year period. Information about future programmes is available from the Embassy of Japan in Wellington.

Spill tracker developed

During a recent marine oil spill exercise at Akitio, the complexities of local currents became a small challenge for the team. Over a 'lemonade' that night, we got talking about the possibility of tracking the spill. We had most of what was needed, it was just a matter of putting the bits and pieces together.

The heart of the unit is a 'Spider' from SpiderTracks. We had one of these sitting on the shelf for an emergency or any of the team that wanted to track a 4WD or quad bike outside our regular GPS/cellular network. We bought a Pelican case, a 12V 4.0Ah battery and a cig socket.

The case naturally wanted to float on its lid so we mounted the Spider face down in the bottom of the case and the battery on top. This will make recharging simple too. Once we had the gear in the case, it was a little less likely to self right to float on the lid, so we added a metal plate into the lid. Once this was done, we couldn't force it to float the wrong way up... we needed the Spider to be either facing the sky or on its side, but not upside down.

We've left the unit running to test battery life and got 47hrs 50min with an automatic ping every 5 minutes. The Spider sends its location via satellite and we can tailor the ping rate depending on our needs from the SpiderTracks website once the unit has been deployed. We could track the location in real-time from the website.

We're not exactly sure whether the unit will track exactly the same as oil on water but we figured it will be close enough for us to know where to send the teams doing a reccy. Wind might have a little more influence on the unit - but it won't be much. The next step will be chucking the unit off a bridge and tracking it down the river - simulating throwing it from an aircraft.

One of the team here is also a marine SAR advisor... he reckons it might also be useful for search and rescue type activities too - we'd happily make it available to help out.

Awesome new Foxton Beach webcam

The Manawatu Marine Boating Club has installed a new webcam on the boat club at Foxton Beach. Overlooking the boat ramp and carpark, this is an excellent quality camera that updates every 10 seconds... incredible!! Pity the weather wasn't so flash today when I grabbed the latest image. If you want to check out the Club's site... go here.

Good job team.

EMIS roll-out delayed until October

From the EMIS website this afternoon...

Following the very successful configuration workshops held in March, many weeks of work have been done to further elaborate the agreed requirements to ensure they meet the needs of MCDEM, CDEM Groups and TA's. During this elaboration, it was clear that some additional information was required to be incorporated into the EMIS portals and user feedback has confirmed this.

In addition, Microsoft has just released SharePoint 2010 as an upgrade of SharePoint 2007 and MCDEM has decided to use SharePoint 2010 as the foundation of EMIS, instead of SharePoint 2007. SharePoint 2010 is better equiped to provide the functionaility the configuration team agreed during the configuration workshops, in particular around resource and task management where significantly better outcomes can be achieved on SharePoint 2010. It also means that we avoid rolling out EMIS based on SharePoint 2007 now, only to have to repeat the process soon after to upgrade to SharePoint 2010. Utilising SharePoint 2010 provides a more future focused approach and no system outages or re-training would be needed to migrate to SharePoint 2010 .

In order to allow the required time to complete configuration and development for the initial EMIS build on SharePoint 2010, then to fully test the solution and offer system training to trainers and administrators, a decision has been made to extend the EMIS go live date. It was felt the benefits we gain far outweigh the delay, and it provides a more future focussed platform to allow any future EMIS releases to be more easily integrated. We are in the final stage of re-planning the timeframes with our key suppliers, but it is envisaged the go live date will now be early October 2010.

We are aware of the potential impact on the use of the EMIS in the planned national CDEM exercise scheduled for 20 October and will make every attempt to deliver an EMIS well before this time. However, it may eventuate that insufficient time is afforded agencies to gain a suitable level of confidence with the EMIS before the exercise. If this is the case, we would not expect users to use the EMIS during the exercise, that could be optional.

Tsunami Strategy and Action Plans

A small team of Emergency Managers from within the Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group are beavering away on the first draft of our Group's Tsunami Strategy and Action Plans. This will document a consistent approach to tsunami response for the Group and will form the basis for consultation with communities that are potentially affected by tsunami run-up.

Run-up modelling has been undertaken for the Group by GNS Science and this is the foundation for the Plan. The zones shown in the picture are indicative of evacuation zones. The Red Zone is the beach and is obviously the area most at risk from tsunami (even small ones). The Orange Zone is likely to be affected by tsunami with a 500yr return period and the Yellow Zone by 2500yr return events.

In real terms, a 500yr tsunami off shore is likely to be between 2.2 and 3.1m (east coast) but when it reaches the beach, this could double in height. This means potentially 6.2m in height. An added margin for safety therefore sees the Orange Evacuation Zone for our east coast being set at the 10m contour. Attenuation has also been calculated at 0.5% = 1m less wave height for every 200m inland.

The 500yr event for Wanganui onshore height is 7.2m, the 2500yr event for our east coast is 35m and for Wanganui is 15.6m. 35m is a pretty big jump in sea level and an event of this magnitude would be massively destructive all around New Zealand.

The team will keep working on the project and we intend to test the Plan during national Exercise Tangaroa in October.

New Director's Guide - Welfare in an emergency

Welfare in an emergency - Director's Guideline for CDEM Groups was published in PDF format on the MCDEM website this morning. Available here.

Links to on-line resources (checklists and templates) contained in the guideline will be added to the website in the near future and print publication will follow.

Welfare in an emergency - Director's Guideline for CDEM Groups provides practical information for organisations with Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) responsibilities in the area of welfare provision. The guideline contains conceptual and functional arrangements to support delivery of welfare in New Zealand. The guideline has been written to be read alongside the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan and the Guide to the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan, where the strategic responsibilities, nationally and operationally, regarding welfare in an emergency are formally outlined.

Group Plan tweak

As with all CDEM Group Plans, over their lifetime they will have minor amendments. The Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group Plan has recently had a minor amendment with a couple changes in Local Controllers. We will endeavour to keep the copy on the Horizons website up-to-date and any changes can be tracked in the back of the Plan on the amendments page.

If you have a paper copy of the Plan, I encourage you to make these changes in pen just to keep current. There will be more changes in due course, but these have yet to go through the Joint Standing Committee for approval.

Here is a link to the Plan page on the Horizons website.

The April e-bulletin is now available

The April issue of e-bulletin is now online. Here's the link:

In this issue…

Exercise Tangaroa agency participation

Regional tsunami seminars reminder

Website established for EMIS project

CDEM Gold and Silver Awards - call for nominations

CDEM welfare update

Maule Chile earthquake mission

Melbourne hail storm early warning report

Christchurch City CDEM trial new community engagement tools

Disaster Awareness Week: name change to Get Ready Week

CDEM Professional Development

CDEM research

New EMIS project website

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management in conjunction with Intergen have just launched a website for keeping the sector informed on development of the new Emergency Management Information System (EMIS) being provided by E-sponder.

Here is the link to the EMIS Project Information Website.

All quiet on the western front...

Well, things just seem to be ticking over quietly here in the Emergency Management Office (now watch, I've probably just jinxed that). A nice steady work flow seems to be keeping us busy with flood action plans under review, the Triennial Business Plan just being finished off, training courses, EMC meetings and contributions to the development of the EMIS. Personally, I think the EMIS is going to be the best thing since sliced bread - watch this space.

If you haven't spotted it already, you can follow MCDEM on Twitter - have a look here for more info. You can also follow us (HorizonsEM@gmail.com).

The latest e-bulletin was also recently published by MCDEM.

Our response to the recent tsunami threat went smoothly, although we did have a few problems updating our website. I'd also like to reinforce that the blog will not be used for that sort of thing (I've had a couple of people ask). MCDEM will be running a tsunami seminar in Palmerston North on 27 April partly in the build up for Exercise Tangaroa in October.

GNS Science tsunami survey

GNS Science are seeking feedback on the Chilean tsunami impacts on New Zealand:

Our tsunami survey

We'd like to hear about your experiences, as well as see any of your tsunami photos and video.

We have set up an online questionnaire that we'd really like you to fill out for us. It will only take about two minutes of your time: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W35LZK2

We've also set up a GeoNet Facebook page for you to share your thoughts, photos and video. In your web browser, please go to http://www.facebook.com/, login and search for 'geonet'or just follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/geonet-fb-page

If you have any tsunami-related videos or photos already posted to places like YouTube and Flickr, it would be very useful if you could "tag" them with the word 'geonet' so we can locate them easily.

Why are we doing it?

The last time that New Zealand was affected by a South American tsunami was in 1960, so these are uncommon events. This makes it a valuable opportunity to compile data, observations, photos and videos to better understand the effects across the nation. The knowledge of what tsunami have done to New Zealand in the past helps to verify the computer simulations we are now able to perform. This Chilean tsunami is another opportunity for us to add to that long-term knowledge.

Not ready to get thru

The Minister has issued a media release today...

Despite the death and destruction caused by the massive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile this year, most New Zealanders are still complacent about preparing for such an event here, Minister of Civil Defence John Carter said today.

Statistics released today – the New Zealand General Social Survey 2008 fact sheet on preparedness for natural disasters – show that just 15 percent of households are well prepared for a natural disaster with enough food and water stored to last three days and an emergency plan.

“Last weekend, while authorities were preparing for a tsunami in the wake of the Chile earthquake, some New Zealanders were still not taking the situation seriously or heeding the warnings,” Mr Carter says.

“Most people realise these warnings are not issued lightly though and went to seek out information. There were 44,000 visitors to the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management’s website www.civildefence.govt.nz on Sunday. But leaving it until the day of a disaster might be too late.

“New Zealand is vulnerable to unpredictable natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami, as well as weather related emergencies. People need to know what this means and that they won’t always get a warning.

“While we have excellent civil defence emergency planning, as we witnessed last weekend, how well prepared communities and individuals are is what will make the difference on the day there is an emergency situation.

“There will be a period of time when households and communities might be isolated and without essential services. There may be massive infrastructure damage taking out roads, airports, rail tracks, power, telecommunications and water.

“We are also geographically isolated from our nearest neighbours on whom we might call for help, so any international emergency response might take days.

“Every household needs to have a plan for this eventuality. Get your family or household together and agree on a plan. This includes knowing where to shelter in an earthquake, flood or storm; knowing where you will all meet up during and after a disaster; and knowing where you have emergency survival items stored.

"Every household also needs to be prepared for evacuation with a basic getaway kit.

“Perhaps also get the household together and research what happens when a major earthquake occurs and what a tsunami is. On Sunday people were quoted as saying they would run if a tsunami hit but of course, you cannot run as fast as a tsunami surge.”

The fact sheet is available at:

http://www.stats.govt.nz/Publications/SocialConditions/natural-disaster-preparation-at-home-factsheet

Controller's Forum

The annual Controller's Forum was held yesterday at Manawatu District Council. This was an excellent opportunity for the Local and Group Controllers from the Group to get together with the EMOs and discuss current issues. We covered all of the topics mentioned in the earlier post about the forum... and had the advantage of having activated over the weekend.

A major item covered that was not on the original list was an update of the flood plain mapping and flood forecasting work that is being undertaken by Horizons Regional Council. Jeff Watson provided participants with a good overview of these two significant projects (worth around $2.8M so far). Jeff also gave us an insight into the potential future use of the data using WaterRide software recently purchased by the Council.

General feedback at the conclusion of the Forum was that it had been a worthwhile day for learning and networking. We should consider running a couple per year.

Group ECC activation

The Manawatu-Wanganui CDEM Group's Emergency Co-ordination Centre and Tararua Emergency Operations Centre were both activated for the tsunami response over the weekend. There was plenty of lead time for this event albeit with the waves first arriving reasonably early on Sunday morning. The Group response was similar to that for the Samoa event however evacuations were not recommended. All arrangements and personnel were in place to respond if evacuations were considered necessary after observations had been made at the Chatham Islands. In the end the community opted to move away from the foreshore and did so in quite an orderly fashion.

The Akitio webcam was adjusted to increase the refresh rate from about hourly to every minute. This gave us a good idea of sea conditions and whether there were people around. It's nice to actually use the camera for its intended purpose. We also kept a close eye on the GeoNet de-tided gauge (which is still showing signs of tsunami slosh today [yes that's my technical terminology]).

We did have a few problems updating the text on our webpage - but we're working on that. We also received an overwhelming number of e-mails and attachments. I think the introduction of the EMIS will go a long way to improving the sharing of information between Groups and MCDEM and minimising the number of e-mails that I'll just mark as read.

All-in-all, a much better effort on the public front this time. Still a number of operational improvements that can be made (and we're working on that). Here's an animation of wave propagation that you might like.

Emergency and armed services open day

On Saturday the 20th, the combined emergency and armed services open day was held at Manfield in Feilding. This was an excellent opportunity for the services to demonstrate their capability to the public for free.

Displays by Police, Fire, St John, Air Force, Army, Coastguard, Helipro and the Square Trust rescue helicopter, PNCC civil defence, neighbourhood support and the CDEM Group made it an interesting collection of capabilities and 'toys' to look at. A variety of central demonstrations were also carried out in the middle of the arena during the day.

The PNCC team focus was on their REST capability and survival items whereas the Group's airshelter display was adapted to present flood protection works for the Makino Stream in Feilding. Evan Lloyd is pictured discussing the Makino Diversion Structure with a local resident.

A huge congratulations to the organising team for pulling off such a great day.

There's a lot going on...

Things have been very busy in the Emergency Management Office this month. Here are a few of the things we've been up to:

• Tararua A&P Show was a couple of weekends ago. Good crowds on the Saturday despite the very hot weather. Some of the team cooked in the AirShelter - so much so we went and hired an aircon unit.
• Ruapehu A&P Show last weekend. We took the display up to Taumarunui and set it up for Annie and her team to staff on the Saturday.
• This weekend we have the Emergency and Armed Services Open Day in Feilding - a different display for this one, focus on the Reid Line spillway. This is a local flood protection structure.
• We've got all of our ducks in a row for Central Districts Field Days in March so its just a matter of showing up for the event.
• AEGIS Map is now open to a select few for testing and proof of concept. We're keeping a close eye on E-sponder and the EMIS project too.
• Navigation safety risk assessments for the Whanganui River are underway along with a review of the bylaws on the Manawatu River
• The EOC in Marton has been gutted for library renovations and a temporary facility has been established in the rural fire depot.
• Welfare Centre kits have been assembled and are being delivered in the next week or two to our Centres.
• The Triennial Business Plan is being worked on.
• Preparations are underway for the Controller's Forum on 1 March and the Conferenz conference next week.
• Neighbourhood Support meetings are happening across Manawatu in conjunction with other services.
• Monitoring and evaluation interviews with MCDEM staff are happening next week too.

All-in-all, there's enough to keep our minds occupied. We've been lucky with a lack of big events to derail our projects.

IT system aids better emergency management

The following is the Minister's media statement released this morning (here is a link to a video of the entry level E-Sponder Express product, MCDEM have gone for an enhanced version of this that still retains the simplicity of Express)...

Minister of Civil Defence John Carter today announced that E-Sponder will supply an electronic emergency management information system (EMIS) for use in the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) and by civil defence authorities.

The NCMC, below ground under the Beehive, is designed to be a national operations centre. From there the responses of the hundreds of organisations likely to be involved in a large scale emergency can be co-ordinated and a national emergency can be managed.

“This EMIS will help us to better manage emergencies,” Mr Carter says. “It will allow us to more quickly and accurately create, and then keep up to date, what is known as a ‘common operating picture’. We use that to ensure that all agencies involved have the same understanding of the situation, who is doing what, where resources are and what decisions are being made.

“That means we will have a faster, better co-ordinated response and, ultimately, a safer, more resilient country.”

Mr Carter said that E-Sponder is an off-the-shelf system already used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in the Australian federal government and by some United States state and county governments to manage information during emergencies.

EMIS is part of a series of upgrades for the NCMC that include expanding alternate communications and installing video conferencing facilities. Cabinet allocated a budget of $2.8 million for all three projects.

Timeline and system attributes

The EMIS contract is being negotiated and will be signed shortly.

EMIS will be rolled out by mid-2010 and will be hosted by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.

Between January and June staff from the Ministry, CDEM groups, territorial authorities and E-Sponder will work together to ensure that the system is appropriately configured for use at all of local, regional and national levels. They will also develop a testing regime before the system is rolled out.

In March, the Ministry will hold an information conference where the system will be demonstrated to CDEM groups and territorial authorities. System administration and management will also be explained.

System attributes include:

· managing all data received through various channels, including voice, fax and e-mail

· all users being able to share and integrate data

· the ability to add new users and assign them appropriate user rights during an emergency

· disseminating information through various channels, including voice, SMS and e-mail

· workflow management

· creating reports and plans

· resource management

· integrated mapping

· creation of status boards

· ease of use.

Corporate background

E-Sponder LLC is a United States company based in Missouri. It has partnered with Intergen Limited to deliver services and provide support in New Zealand and Australia. Links to:

· E-Sponder corporate profile http://www.e-sponder.com/corporate-info.html

· Intergen website www.intergen.co.nz

Manawatu-Wanganui Controller's Forum

From time-to-time the Group has a get together of its CDEM Controllers. This is an opportunity to focus on recent activities within the Group and at a national level that will impact on us during an emergency. This year, the Controller's Forum is scheduled for 1 March and will cover a wide range of topics for the local and Group Controllers, including:

• The new CDEM Group Plan - what's new, what's different?
• Triennial Business Plan - what are we going to do for the next three years?
• Public Education and Information Strategy and survey results
• AEGIS Map project (a joint project with Hawkes Bay)
• National Emergency Management Information System (to be rolled out this year)
• National Exercise Tangaroa (coming up later this year)
• Monitoring and Evaluation audit of the Group by MCDEM
• Administrative arrangements for welfare support during pandemic influenza (a new guide)

The forum is limited to Controllers and Emergency Managers from within the Group so that we can focus on specific detail of our Group and the Group's activities.

Update on activities

Well, the year is well and truly underway. We managed to get through the Christmas and New Year period with minimal disruption despite the dodgy weather. Horowhenua did experience its fair share of the nasty weather and did have to co-ordinate a small response to coastal communities becoming isolated. A bridge on North Manakau Road also had to be closed - but nothing too drastic.

Emergency Management Officers are meeting next week to look at the first draft of the CDEM Group Triennial Business Plan. This will then go to the Co-ordinating Executive Group for their input in early February. The Plan will provide guidance to members of the Group in the development of their annual business plans and linking their work programmes to the direction of the Group.

The National Working Group Selection Committee has recommended the appointment of four CDEM representatives on MCDEM's Exercise Tangaroa Working Group (this year's national CDEM exercise). These are:

• Te Arohanui Cook, Central Hawkes Bay District Council
• Jessica Hare, Wellington Regional Council
• Dan Neeley, Wellington City Council
• Clinton Naude, Environment Bay of Plenty.

Paul Nickalls from Hutt City Council has been recommended as a reserve. The Committee was conscious of a mix of territorial and regional representation and was also aware that there were no nominations from the South Island.

Nominations for representation on the national Emergency Management Information System Configuration Team close today. I would imagine that an announcement will be made soon on who the representatives are. On that note, MCDEM is due to announce any day now who the successful provider is for the EMIS.

Co-ordinating Executive Group meeting coming up on the 9th February in Dannevirke this time.

Rebranding the AirShelter for the Emergency Services Open Day on the 20th February to promote the purpose of the Reid's Line Flood Control Structure in Feilding.

Anyway - everyone's back on deck so you can expect the posts to become a little more regular.