Storm test blows away civil defence

Auckland's brand new regional civil defence system has effectively flunked its first test, an exercise which modelled the region's response to a once-in-100-years cyclone.

An evaluation of the December 8 "Exercise Jaffa" by a former Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Fred Wilson, has found that the regional civil defence group's knowledge and resources are "not at a satisfactory standard" to meet legal requirements.

"Many of the senior team had no civil defence and emergency management experience or training, had never been in the group emergency operations centre before, and were consequently unsure of their role and what was expected of them," the evaluation found.

"This is a serious indictment on the professionalism of many of the senior managers present, who are chosen to undertake key responsibilities in a regional emergency."

Regional officials have accepted all of Admiral Wilson's 12 recommendations for improvements. The table-top test, the first regional civil defence exercise in Auckland for five or six years, was designed to assess a new regional structure created by a law which came into force last July.

Forty-four people from local councils, Police, Fire Service and other agencies were given a scenario in which Auckland was hit by "Cyclone Jezebel" blowing at up to 170km/h.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge, Upper Harbour Bridge, Mangere Bridge, Panmure and Pakuranga bridges were all closed.

Waves surged up to 8m at high tides along exposed parts of the East Coast Bays and the Firth of Thames.

Civil defence managers led by the regional group controller, Waitakere City Council chief executive Harry O'Rourke, gathered in the group operations centre in the Bledisloe Building at 7.15am and declared a regional state of emergency two hours later.

At 8.55am, Mr O'Rourke requested plans to be ready by 3pm to evacuate people from low-lying areas.

By 1.09pm, 2000 people had been evacuated to 20 welfare centres.

Admiral Wilson, whose company FNP Consulting was contracted to plan the exercise, said the handling of the tasks was "poor".

"Most personnel in the exercise had never met before, let alone developed any mutual rapport. This resulted in poor management and delivery," he said. "Response was initially very fragmented due to a lack of clearly identified ... operational structure and role."

The scenario predicted storm surges building to a peak about 2am, but one participant said the focus on the imminent crisis had been lost. Officials had instead focused on "current issues".

A third of the 22 participants who gave feedback said they did not have sufficient knowledge of their roles in the exercise. Admiral Wilson said: "This probably represents an under-reporting of around 100 per cent."

Admiral Wilson's recommendations included immediately updating procedures for calling up officials in an emergency, and the contact list of officials; developing standard operating procedures to provide checklists of what had to be done; and introducing training and regular "leadership sessions" for key officials.

Group emergency management office manager Jim Stephens, a former firefighter, said the exercise was "100 per cent absolutely fantastic" and his office had started work on implementing all the recommendations.

The new system will be tested again on May 17 in an international exercise modelling a Pacific Ocean tsunami.