Do your best to deal with worst

I DON'T think even the most prepared and motivated person on this planet could safely declare that in the event of a major disaster, say an earthquake, they would be ready.

Because disasters don't have scripts and they don't send out invitations to join them at a specific time and place.

Depending on the scale of the circumstance, you can simply only do what you can.

That even goes for the experts.

As Napier Civil Defence manager Angela Reade put it at a media gathering yesterday, "We do the best we can."

But nothing will ever go smoothly, or to the best-laid plans, because the ripple effects from a disaster are not uniform. They discovered that in Christchurch.

There's enough to deal with without having to take another call from the media, but as Napier City Council emergency-management communications officer Monique Jeffares said: "We need the media as much as the media need us."

Basically, to raise awareness to get the word out widely and quickly at the time of an emergency.

She and Angela both did stints on the Christchurch front line, and were part of a 30-strong team set up to deal with media inquiries and requests. That sounds like a solid-sized team, but they had 1000 accredited media on the books to deal with.

Getting information out "immediately" was a major part of getting the affected community back up and running, and was one facet of a raft of missions the civil-defence crews were tasked with.

They learned a lot, and while the event was devastating and tragic it had a silver lining in that it helped hone the preparedness and management of civil defence crews from all across the country.

"We did learn a lot," Monique said, adding that certain approaches in response plans for Napier and the region were revisited, and some were rejigged. "We are always streamlining the systems."

Mayor Barbara Arnott, who opened the briefing, said Napier, and the region, was in good shape in terms of preparedness.

"In an emergency, our managers can be there at [2am] or whenever. We have 150 staff who can be called on immediately."

It's probably fair to say the Bay is better prepared than many other regions because we have been there before.

There are people here who have been to the coal face and have seen the trauma and the huge disruption to normality a disaster causes, and have gleaned value from it in terms of being prepared.

The overwhelming opinion at the end of the briefing was familiar but real: "It's not a matter of if ... it's a matter of when."

That we don't know, but I get the comforting feeling that if bad things happen we are in good hands.