On Friday August 12 last year council received a positive result for E.coli in the Havelock North Water supply.
This positive result was discussed with the Hawke's Bay District Health Board on Friday morning, which had noticed an above-normal level of gastro-related presentations at the hospital the night before. The water test results linked the two.
The council and district health board met that afternoon to discuss their response to the situation.
The council chlorinated the Havelock North water supply at 5.30pm that night. An hour later a boil-water notice was released to television, radio and print media; along with publishing the notice on the agency's websites.
The council's efforts to quickly communicate the problem were said to be "hampered by the tyranny of the timing" that affected the speed at which the council's messages became known the residents.
In the report, Mr Hamilton recommends reviewing the capacity the council's communications team has for emergencies, developing plans to supplement its existing capacity and working with the Hawke's Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group to advocate to the Government for the introduction of a national public alerting system using technology such as cell broadcasting.
Hastings District Mayor Lawrence Yule said it's "absolutely appropriate" that a national public alerting system is introduced for similar events.
"I think we could have potentially used mass media maybe an hour and a half or two hours earlier and it would have been good if we'd known [and] told the national news channels that there was a boiled water notice ... but equally I don't think anybody truly appreciated the scale of this. It kept evolving," he said.
"The key thing we might have been able to do a little bit better would be to communicate to people to boil their water until the chlorine's in ... but apart from that we had a very positive and swift response."
The district health board had undertaken to contact rest homes that night but this was not done until Saturday morning. The report stated it is "doubtful" the delay aggravated the situation, as chlorinated water was throughout the system by midnight Friday.
The next morning the district health board was told an elderly patient at Mary Doyle rest home had died.
Also on Saturday morning, a council environmental officer contacted food outlets, cafes, restaurants, cars and moteliers face-to-face to ensure they were aware of the boil notice.
The council planned to place a full-page update bulletin in Monday's edition of Hawke's Bay Today. Radio and television had begun carrying the contamination emergency as national news headlines.
The council ramped up its response on Monday and opened the Emergency Operations Centre. Mr Hamilton said in hindsight this should have been done sooner, although it would have been a "tough judgment call".
"Sometimes it might be seen as over-reacting, but it is better to be seen to be reactive and ready to assist those impacted than being accused of being tardy and unresponsive."
Declaring a local state of emergency would have enhanced community and media awareness, Mr Hamilton said. No declaration was made.
Mr Hamilton said to be of value the declaration would have needed to have been made on Saturday morning but at the time the council deemed it was not warranted.
Mr Yule said the council has already changed their communications methodology to ensure that if a decision is ever made to chlorinate the water again the council will immediately publicise the fact that residents should boil their water.
"I think that would be all a learning for the future and we're supportive of these recommendations and we'll be enacting them; many of them are already enacted," he said.
