KEY POINTS:
A reassuring sign that Auckland's civic leaders are serious about being ready to handle a disaster has appeared in the basement of a CBD office block.
It is a large room, furnished like a call centre but bristling with equipment that gives emergency managers a full picture of potential and actual threats to the region's 1.3 million people.
Yesterday was an uneventful day at the new regional civil defence emergency management office, which has six fulltime staff.
But executive manager Ben Stallworthy said that last month they worked long hours, monitoring the approach of destructive storms, alerting people about them and helping to deal with 50 media inquiries when 15 houses were evacuated after a landslip in Torbay.
In a disaster, the office's desks would be filled with senior emergency services officials, specialist volunteers and chiefs of local councils.
They would be informed by a bank of big screens as well as intelligence from a robust radio and digital communications set-up that is plugged into a regional and national network.
The office will be officially opened tomorrow by Civil Defence Minister Rick Barker.
Boosting disaster-management capability to a higher level has taken years of effort by the region's local authorities at a cost of $745,000 to ratepayers, said Derek Battersby, chairman of the Auckland Civil Defence Emergency Management Group.
It is a joint committee of elected members from all the councils and is tasked with leading emergency management and planning.
"The councils have been proactive and supportive of having this regional office up and running and quickly as possible," said Mr Battersby.
Since a review criticised the region's civil defence plan's lack of reliable communications and warning capability two years ago, the councils have trebled the region's annual civil defence budget to $1.7 million.
The emergency office is leased from the Auckland Regional Council, but seven local councils also have their own civil defence centres.
Waitakere has spent $1.8 million on building a local "earthquake-proof" headquarters with an independent power and water supply.
"People can take some comfort in that we can respond rapidly and do the best we can with limited resources," said Mr Battersby. "But having said that, the exercises show there are some areas where we need to improve."
Possible hazards planned for are: failure of electricity and other lifelines, bushfires, flooding, cyclonic storms, tornadoes, tsunami, chemical spills and fires, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
