Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you

Now I've got the Crowded House song stuck in my head...

I'm betting there are a few people in Nelson wondering who brought the weather with them on holiday, and hoping they could take it away again.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6141806/Tales-of-destruction-as-flooding-sweeps-Nelson

A State of Emergency has been declared to help manage the response to the flooding and slips.

It makes you think, doesn't it? Could that happen where you're going on holiday this Christmas?

Is your favourite camping spot on a river flat which could flood? Are you tramping through an area where you'd have to cross streams or rivers?

What about other hazards? Is the bach in a tsunami evacuation zone, or in an area with a high fire danger?

I know it's a bit doom & gloom for what is supposed to be happy time of year, but unfortunately there are plenty of things that could go wrong while you are on holiday. Fortunately you can reduce your risks with some careful planning, and some of the same basic things that you do to prepare at home.

Know your risks - ask the local district council of the place you are going to.
Have a plan & learn where the important facilities are - medical centres etc
Take extra water and survival items with you. Something to keep the kids entertained in the car definitely counts as a survival item. Bored kids is a disaster on its own!

One year on

One year ago today I had toothache that kept me awake most of the night. One year ago today I sat in the silent, shaking dark with growning panic. One year ago today my cat was hiding under my bed, petrified. One year ago today I actually used my Civil Defence training. With the usual strangeness of time it seems both long ago and far too recent.

- Jennifer Jacobs, Christchurch

4th September 2010 - 4: 35am

For people in Canterbury the earth shifted beneath them, literally, and everything changed.

For some people it was a dry run of what was to come in February, but for others that first shake was enough to tear their lives apart. It was a miracle that no one died in that quake (the timing meant that most people were at home in their beds), but people no longer felt safe in their own homes (some were forced to abandon their houses due to the physical damage), familiar places were broken and no longer familiar, workplaces closed, sometimes forever, livelihoods lost or drastically altered.

What was "normal" became something very different to what you or I would consider to be normal. Moata's blog on Stuff has some brilliant insights on this, and the comments are enlightening, and quite touching. http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/moatas-blog-idle/5554131/Happy-anniversary-baby

Things changed for the rest of the country too. There was a certain degree of "What the..? Christchurch?! But Wellington is supposed to get the Big One..." and then the sudden realisation for many people that, yes, it could happen any where, any time. And we live in Porirua, the Wellington Fault is just over there, why aren't you prepared already?!

Sales of bottled water and water containers around the country sky-rocketed. I know some of our local stores sold out as people actually started to think about their emergency supplies, and stocked up.

The phone on my desk started ringing near-constantly with community-conscious groups asking us to come out and talk to them about preparedness, or individuals asking about the best ways to store water or create an emergency toilet. It's one of the things we're here to do, so keep those calls coming.

Some of our council staff were deployed to Canterbury to help with building inspections and repairs to the sewage, drainage & water networks. We also had staff helping at the National Crisis Management Centre coordinating the national response.

Response agencies around the country stretched their own local resources to send staff & volunteers to ease the burden of those local people who had continued to provide response services to the public, despite being just as affected as those they were helping.

Lessons were learned about things that worked in theory, but weren't so good in practice, proven systems proved themselves yet again. Some of the wrinkles were ironed out of plans which had never been fully tested, and almost everyone had some handy gem of wisdom to pass on to help others get through the next event - which unfortunately came all too soon on February 22nd.

What have you learned from Canterbury's misfortune? Is there some handy tip that friends or family in Canterbury have passed on to you? Have you taken extra steps to prepare your family as as result of the Canterbury earthquakes?

75% prepared

Awesome work, guys!

According to the latest Annual Residents' Survey of 400 Porirua residents, 75% of you have stored food & water and have a household plan for an emergency. The last time the survey was done, we only recorded 56%. What changed your mind?

While I'd love to claim the credit, I know a significant proportion of it to be a direct result of the Canterbury earthquakes. It's sad, but true, that it takes a disaster to spur us into action. I wish it didn't.

There's hardly anyone that I know that doesn't have friends or family in Canterbury, and when it's friends and family telling you the things they've experienced, and what they've had to do to get through, it really makes you realise that it could happen to you too. Especially since the Wellington region was always the place waiting for the Big One - the Canterbury quakes came out of the blue.

Have you changed your attitude towards preparing for emergencies as a result of the Canterbury quakes, or is there something else which made you decide to get ready?

Are you one of those 75% who are prepared? If not, why not?

While we don't want to be having more disasters, if there are other things that have got you thinking and preparing, please let us know!

Get Ready Week 2010 - Tsunami special

October 10-16 is Get Ready Week.

It used to be called Disaster Awareness Week, but it's important to not just be aware of diasters, you actually have to do something about preparing for them! Get Ready to help you Get Thru.

The Wellington region's theme for this year's Get Ready Week is tsunami - it was timely after the Chilean tsunami, and the national Exercise Tangaroa next week on October 20th is also based on a distant-source tsunami - these were all planned out well before the quake in Canterbury - I guess earthquake will be the theme again next year?

If you get the Kapi-Mana News in Porirua & Tawa, you'll receive a copy of "It's Easy - Know your tsunami zone" (or you can download the 737kb pdf by clicking on the link) in with the paper today.

Have a look at where you live, work, play & holiday in the region. If you'd like more detail, contact the city council for the area you are interested in. Porirua's tsunami evacuation zone maps can be found here - http://www.pcc.govt.nz/A-Z-Services/Emergency-Management/Tsunami-Evacuation-Zones

There will be ads on the TV & radio during the week, keep your eyes & ears peeled for them.

Floods, fires, fuel, flus & flares

Plenty going on on the disaster front world-wide - floods in Pakistan killing over a thousand people, affecting a million more, wildfires in Greece & Russia, BP may finally start plugging the leaking Gulf oil well, and more locally, an outbreak of swine flu at Seddon School in the South Island had almost half of the school away sick last week, and finally a couple of solar flares are headed our way today, but thankfully they don't seem to be big enough to do much more than put on a stunning display of the Aurora Australis if you happen to live far enough south. Massive solar flares have the potential to knock out satellites & communications and power grids.

I presume you all survived Sunday's weather all right. I saw the weather warnings for the wind and rain, but wasn't anywhere near a computer to be able to post about them as I was on holiday - certainly made the ferry crossing interesting!

Lessons from Chile

The latest issue of "Impact" has been published by the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management, and it has some good articles in it - especially one on the lessons which can be learned from the impact of the 8.8 quake that struck Chile on 27 Feb, and caused tsunami warnings all around the Pacific. Building codes, infrastructure redundancies & public education and preparedness really do make a difference.

There's also plug for the Wellington Region's new step-by-step preparedness guide - "It's Easy - Get prepared for an emergency", which you can download here (670kb). The others in the public education team and I are pretty chuffed with how it's turned out.

Listen for the sting

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3757461/Civil-Defence-unveils-new-alarm-sting

Actually, despite that headline, it's not a "new" sting alarm at all, it's the same old one, which most people probably don't recognise anymore.

Here's the Ministry's media release.

Civil defence emergency “sting” broadcast on radio

From Monday (31 May 2010) people might hear electronic civil defence emergency alarms on their radios.

The Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management, John Hamilton, said that at first the alarms will be new radio commercials. Later, they could be the alarm signalling an emergency public safety message.

Mr Hamilton said the Ministry has made the commercials to help people recognise the distinctive electronic “sting” that radio stations will use before broadcasting official civil defence emergency messages.

What has been found overseas is that where there is no clear signal or alarm, public safety messages blend into the surrounding advertising and programming.

“That had tragic consequences in the Victorian bush fires,” Mr Hamilton said. “In the aftermath, authorities learned that many people did not respond to evacuation and other messages broadcast on their radios because they ‘heard’ them as commercials or other programmes, not as official warnings.”

In Victoria use of an alarm before a civil defence message is broadcast on the radio has now been made mandatory.

“We have not gone that far in New Zealand,” Mr Hamilton said. “We have worked with Radio New Zealand, The Radio Broadcasters’ Association, Radio Live and The Radio Network. They all take their emergency responsibilities seriously and have told us they want public safety messages to be as clear as possible.

“We are happy to look at how we could work with other broadcasters too.”

The Ministry has existing memorandums of understanding with radio and television broadcasters to broadcast official messages during emergencies.

Get Ready Get Thru

The new radio commercials promoting the “sting” are part of the Ministry’s Get Ready Get Thru public education programme. The next step of the campaign is three weeks of radio and television advertising starting on television on Sunday, 30 May 2010, and on radio on Monday, 31 May 2010.

New radio commercials can be heard on the downloads page of the Get Ready Get Thru website, and will feature:

• The “sting” – the alarm radio stations can play before official civil defence messages.
• The natural warnings of a local tsunami – a tsunami caused by an earthquake near the coast could arrive within minutes, long before a formal warning could be issued. People need to know the natural warnings that might come before a local tsunami.
• Have a battery-powered radio. If there are power cuts during an emergency a battery powered radio is likely to be the only way many people would receive official messages.
• Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Samoan and Hindi language on ethnic radio. The Get Ready Get Thru website can already be viewed in nine different languages, English, Te Reo, Samoan, Tongan, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.

Existing commercials will continue to be broadcast. They promote the need to have emergency items and water to last at least three days and an emergency plan that includes what to do when not at home as well as at home.

“The message throughout our campaign – in the advertising, schools’ resources, Yellow Pages notices, and all our other promotions – remains consistent,” Mr Hamilton said:

“Get ready now so you can get through.”

Aftershock on TV3 - Saturday 16 Jan - 8:30pm

The tele-movie Aftershock will be screening on TV3 next Saturday at 8:30pm, following on from last Saturday's Scorched - which was interestingly timed since I'd just gotten cleaned up after battling a scub fire up Mt Victoria. It's not even Disaster Awareness Week, or anything. They'll probably be screening Dante's Peak next... Reminds me, must go see 2012 for a laugh.

I'm not sure if TV3 is screening the factual TV follow-up, Aftershock – Would you Survive? but it's still all well worth watching anyway.

Discovering what it's like to be stuck at school

On Thursday last week, a class of 11 & 12-year-old kids from Discovery School in Whitby got a taste of what it would be like to be stuck at school after a major event like an earthquake.

In the week prior I got a few calls from the pupils asking if I could come in and talk to them about emergency stuff during their earthquake simulation day on Friday 11 December. They were going to spend the whole day and overnight at the school living like they would in an emergency. Awesome, I'm in!

However, their teacher, Mr McManaway, had been very sneaky, and gotten to me first. So, in collaboration with the parents, we sprung it all on them a day early! It would hardly be a realistic exercise if the kids have a sleeping bag, a tent, and dinner for four tucked away in their school bag, would it?

10am on the Thursday an earthquake struck while the kids were at phys-ed. The sound system played the realistic rumbles and crashes of an earthquake while the kids dropped, covered and held. Once the aftershocks stopped (the track got stuck on repeat...), we all made our way back to their classroom, and they discovered the wreckage.





Tables upended, bookshelves toppled, possessions strewn across the room, tree branches through the windows, "broken glass" everywhere. Total carnage! It took a good while to get it cleaned up and made liveable again. Because living there was what they were going to have to do - possibly until Saturday morning, which, as far as the kids knew, was when their parents were going to pick them up.



Once they had things tidy, we took stock of the situation. I gave them the run-down on what was expected of the school in such situations, and we all discussed where their parents worked, how long it was likely to take them to get to the school and so on. We had a look at the emergency supplies that were available, and thought about how to ration those. Some kids hadn't had any breakfast, and some had planned to buy lunch so didn't have any food with them at all. There were presentations on emergency food and water, and how to dispose of sewerage in an emergency.

A bit before lunchtime we headed over to the library to discover that the earthquake had affected it as well, and there were injured kids inside who needed their help. I was well impressed by their first aid skills.

I had to head off around lunch time for another meeting, and when I left the kids were still under the impression that they were going to have to use a bucket for a toilet.

I got back shortly after 5pm, and the kids were still being kids, and the teacher was looking slightly frazzled, but nobody had gone cannibal yet. The emergency survival food was dug out for dinner and consumed with varying degrees of enthusiasm. We then sat down to watch the show that screened after Aftershock - the one about the family surviving for three days on their emergency stuff. We thought the kids were probably a bit young to inflict the full movie on them.

The next plan was to sort out all the sleeping arrangements. The kids spent a goodly while building forts and tents out of the available furniture before we decided that, since we had a perfectly intact roof, the curtains would be more use as blankets rather than tents. Some interesting "debates" about group versus individual needs.

The kids had pretty well bedded down for the night by the time I headed off arounf 9:15pm. Their parents were scheduled to pick them up at 10:30, so they could go home to their real beds, and be vaguely functional human beings for school the next day.

A really interesting day!

California Shake Out

We're not the only one's doing something during Disaster Awareness Week, I only wish we had the resources to do something on this scale - http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/2971232/California-massive-quake-drill

7 million people signed up to take part in the exercise. 7 million!

Disaster Awareness Week 2009

Just in case you weren't aware enough - it's Disaster Awareness Week!

Disaster Awareness Week runs nationally to coincide with the International Disaster Reduction Day on the second Wednesday of October - this Wednesday, 14 October.

You may have heard the ads on the radio already - Wherever you are right now, are you ready?
There are also ads showing on TV.

After the past few weeks' events, I reckon the residents of Porirua are much more aware than they used to be, but to help push the message home, we're working with Porirua New World (who you'll be very pleased to know contacted us during the tsunami alert on the 30th of September to see if they needed to put their Civil Defence plan into action) with a display table of important information, and survival items around the store will be highlighted. We'll also be giving away eco-shopping bags - they have a checklist on them of some of the things you should have for your survival kit - a good reminder when you're out doing the shopping.

If you are after containers to store emergency water in, you can stop by at our main council reception desk in Cobham Court. The big yellow containers are $15 each and hold 15 litres of water - they're a bit easier to stack than old fizzy & juice bottles - takes up less room in the cupboard.

A busy day...

My diary for yesterday was really quite full - radio checks, Regional Welfare Advisory Group meeting in the Hutt Valley, talking to householders in Aberfeldy St about emergency preparedness - pretty solidly booked. But a bit after 7.30 this morning my phone beeped and came up with the message - Tsunami Warning - threat to New Zealand. Eeep!

I didn't make it to a single meeting.

We actually took it pretty seriously in Porirua. Given the non-event, we probably over-reacted, but the controller & I decided we would do exactly the same thing if it happened again. It was an invaluable learning exercise for our team - with all the focus of an actual, life-threatening situation (even if no lives were actually in danger here - except for some idiot surfers in Titahi Bay perhaps). It highlighted the gaps that need to be remedied, and increased our profile with the businesses and facilities in low lying areas that we contacted. I couldn't have designed a better exercise or PR campaign if I tried! Exercising just isn't the same - there's no sense of urgency, even if you are trying to play in real time, it can all be a bit amorphous and airy-fairy. But this was real people in real time, with real concerns of impending doom. Makes such a difference.

I should keep track of how many times I've been woken up by the National Warning System. This definitely isn't the first or even second time it's happened.

I apologise if I sound a bit flippant about it, but we are truly saddened by the loss of life in the Pacific Islands affected by the tsunami, and our thoughts go out to the residents of Porirua who have lost familiy & friends in this event.

If you wish to help, please think about donating money - do not donate goods - they are nigh impossible to actually deliver to the affected people, it's a logistical nightmare, and very expensive to deal with - unfortunately much actually gets thrown away. Donating money will get what is actually needed directly to where it is needed, with a minimum of fuss.

Playing Russian Roulette

So the big news at the end of last week was that the "It's Our Fault" project had shown that the Wellington Fault was about 50% less likely to cause a large (magnitude 7.5) quake in the next 100 years than previously thought. Hurrah!

Project leader Russ Van Dissen, from GNS, likened this to playing Russian Roulette with a 10-shot revolver, where previously we thought that the revolver was loaded with three rounds, but now we think it's only loaded with one, giving us a 10% chance of a large earthquake on the Wellington Fault in the next 100 years.

Much better odds, but the problem is that you're still playing Russian Roulette! And not only are you playing it with the Wellington Fault, but also the Ohariu Fault, the Wairarapa Fault, the Alpine Fault and any other number of less well-studied active faults in the area. That's a lot of triggers to pull, and we don't know how many bullets are in those guns.

And besides, you are more likely to experience a big quake on the Wellington Fault each year than you are to win Lotto, and yet people still buy Lotto tickets instead of emergency supplies or earthquake restraints. If only persuading people to spend $5 a week on preparing themselves was as easy as it is to get them to buy a Lotto ticket! Oh, to have Lotto's budget...

National Advisory - Tsunami: Potential threat to NZ

Don't panic, it's been cancelled...

Woohoo, something that isn't the bloody flu!

At 10:21 pm last night my phone beeped at me to say I had a text, and being part of the generation who are addicted to their mobile phones, I pounced on it to see who had sent me a late night message. My number must very similar to the number belonging to some other young lady by the name of Emma, as I occassionally get random texts along the lines of "hey em. wot u werin". To my surprise, it wasn't a wrong number booty call, but the National Warning System. I could tell by the use of complete words and punctuation. "National Advisory - Tsunami: Potential threat to NZ No:01. Refer to fax or email." So refer I did, as fast as I could.

Somehow I'd missed the texts in my inbox from GeoNet telling me there had been a 6.6 and a 6.1 earthquake near Tuatapere (wherever the hell that was...). I didn't feel the quake at all, I think I was vacuuming at the time (which would probably be the reason I didn't hear my phone beep, come to think about it.), so Tuatapere obviously isn't anywhere near here. Turns out it's down Fiordland way.

Stuff.co.nz gets the advisories at the same time that we do, and by 10:25 there was a story about it. The reported size of the quake has varied a bit - GNS first reported it at 6.6, then revised it to 7.8. US Geological Service had it at 7.8 and has revised it back down to 7.6. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially had it at 8.2. I'm going to go with 7.8.

There was a bit of down time while we waited for the sea level gauges to tell us if any tsunami had actually been generated, but once the gauge at Jacksons Bay told us that a wave just 17cm high had been generated, the Minstry cancelled the potential threat advisory. A point to note, if you feel an earthquake that makes it hard for you to stand up, and you live by the sea or are on the beach, head for higher ground ASAP - we won't have time to tell you to evacuate.

The cancellation came through at 11.12pm. Evacuation warnings were being screened on Australian TV after that time... Apparently theatregoers at a performance at the beachside Bondi Pavillion in Sydney were evacuated. By the time I went to bed, none of the NZ news websites had actually published that the advisory had been cancelled - which is somewhat frustrating. Telling people they can stop panicking (if they did) is just as important as letting people know there might be a problem!

The faultline down there is still going ping quite enthusiastically with aftershocks. Check out the seismographs and recent quake information at http://www.geonet.org.nz/. And here's a stuff.co.nz article about it - http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2598128/Southland-hit-by-repeated-earthquakes

Celebrating 75 years of firefighting in Plimmerton

Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade celebrated 75 years of firefighting in Plimmerton with an Emergency Services Parade of around 25 emergency vehicles through Plimmerton, followed by an open day at Plimmerton School. Fire trucks, tankers, rescue tenders, amublances - St John & Wellington Free Amubulance, rural fire, Salvation Army, Police and Porirua Emergency Management - it was quite an impressive sight to see them all winding their way down the road. Lots of families out enjoying the nice weather, lots of kids to wave to. Once we got to Plimmerton School there were demostrations of the Fire Service's kitchen fire simulator, a motor vehicle extrication, followed by paramedic treatment and winching the patient into a hovering Helipro chopper, then a couple of people from the Wellington Rural Fire Force rappelled out of the helicopter. A good day all round. It was good to see so many people reading the information on the PEMObile!

Pictures from the event can be found here - http://www.111emergency.co.nz/PVFB75.htm

Disaster Awareness Week

Distaster Awareness Week 2008 began on Sunday 5th October. On Monday, I set up a display of our new 15L emergency water containers (available from the PCC office, $15 each) in the Spine at Pataka, but unfortunately Porirua's Emergency Management team had a training course that we needed to attend from Tuesday through to Thursday - Coordinated Incident Management System training with the NZ Police College, and today the Wellington Region EMOs have their monthly meeting up in Kapiti, so we've kind of missed out on doing anything really exciting with regards to Disaster Awareness Week.

But at least we didn't have to get up super early on Wednesday to hand out useful things to commuters at the Wellington Railway Station like many others in the Wellington CDEM Group. I really hadn't been looking forward to getting up to be at the station for 7am!

Stayed home on Wednesday night to watch the NZ-made movie Aftershock about a 8.2 earthquake on the Wairarapa Fault near Wellington. That definitely got people talking about disaster preparedness - it was the prime topic of discussion in the tearoom, and our councillors are now asking for a briefing on Porirua's plans - great stuff!

Thursday's followup programme was also a great reminder of the kinds of things you need to do to be prepared - don't forget to store your emergency supplies somewhere easily accessible!

For those that missed both shows, they can currently be viewed on TV3's website. They'll be available until October 23 for the movie, and October 24 for the follow-up.

The weather during the week was also a good reminder for people - strong winds knocked down trees, took the roof off at least one shed that I saw, and the rain gave people in Hutt City a bit of excitement as several streets were closed due to flooding.

New six-part civil defence radio series

When the Siren Goes is a new six-part radio series from Radio New Zealand National which explores our level of disaster awareness and considers the public response that would follow a major civil defence emergency.

The series features unique archival audio from Radio New Zealand Sound Archives, including remarkable recollections from a witness to the Mount Tarawera eruption of 1886, recorded 70 years after the event.

In addition to the radio broadcasts, all audio will be available on demand and as podcasts from a special section of the Radio New Zealand website. The web section will be live from the date of the first broadcast on Friday July 11, 3:30pm and features additional archival audio, visual information including photos and video clips, and a range of links to local and international web resources.

When the Siren Goes is a series of programmes produced and broadcast as a public value partnership between Radio New Zealand and the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management. Radio New Zealand is a designated lifeline utility organisation responsible for the broadcast of emergency warnings and public information in the event of a civil defence emergency.


NOTE: Apart from the sirens on the volunteer fire stations at Titahi Bay and Plimmerton, Porirua does not currently have any kind of civil defence warning sirens.