Katrina provides lesson for New Zealand

New Zealand would need to be more efficient than the United States if faced with a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, said a leading civil defence expert.

John Titmus, an Aucklander who is heading a United Nations team supporting the relief effort for hurricane survivors, said the disaster reinforced the need for comprehensive emergency plans in New Zealand.

"Our planning has got to be more efficient because we've got less resources," he said yesterday from Washington DC.

The 57-year-old, who has worked in emergency management for 20 years, spent the last two weeks in Louisiana leading a team of 10 international disaster experts.

They were based in the state capital Baton Rouge and made regular helicopter trips to New Orleans.

Mr Titmus said the destruction was shocking - a city the size of Auckland virtually submerged.

The latest reports said one million people had been displaced and 60,000 were missing. Four thousand of those were feared dead.

Mr Titmus said it would take decades for New Orleans to get back on its feet. "And that's assuming Mother Nature is kind to them."

The US has been criticised for not responding quickly enough to the disaster, but Mr Titmus said the response had been enormous.

"I've never seen such a large amount of assets devoted to an emergency."

He said US authorities had trucked in huge amounts of ice and water to New Orleans, where temperatures were averaging more than 35C.

He had seen 1200 trucks of ice on a single road.

In Baton Rouge, he and his team stayed in a vast tent city set up by the US military to accommodate 2500 emergency workers and armed forces. "I had some of the best food I'd ever tasted."