A new group of volunteers has stepped up to support emergency planning in Wānaka.

The Wānaka Community Response Group (WCRG) was established in September.

In the event of a natural disaster or emergency, it will coordinate communication with Emergency Management Otago (EMO), and circulate information to assist the community and other emergency operatives, WCRG chair Mick Hollyer said.

He said the group was formed after a push from EMO.

“EMO doesn’t have the personnel to cover the community. They are looking for organisations who have people on the ground who can convey information from the community to them.”

The new group (an incorporated society and charity) is not competing with other organisations; instead it aims to create resilience within the local community to prepare for emergencies.

“We’ve set up the group. We’ve had several meetings, and we’ve applied for funding. We need quite a bit of gear, generators, hand held radios, and so on,” Mick said.

Emergency planning in the Upper Clutha

The Upper Clutha faces a range of potential hazards, from flooding to the big looming threat of an overdue Alpine Fault quake, but questions remain around how coordinated our emergency preparedness is.

A recent unplanned power outage highlighted the vulnerability of the district’s electricity supply as well as possible gaps in such planning.

There is no shortage of organisations and roles in the patchwork of emergency management, but uncertainty remains in some areas.

The October 6 outage affected customers in the wider Wānaka area and left the Wānaka Lakes Health Centre closed and radio stations off air.

It was “an important stress test” for emergency preparedness in this area, Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) resilience and climate action manager Bill Nicoll said, and it highlighted “the vulnerability of the district’s electricity supply”.

“Planning for these major emergency events is a continual focus for council and resources such as the Alpine Fault AF8 Safer Framework help drive a coordinated local, regional and national emergency response,” he said.

But how well is our local emergency response being coordinated and are key parties aware of what is planned? 

Communications: ‘Wānaka could be cut off’

The Wānaka Community Response Plan, which was prepared by EMO, lists Radio Wānaka as the first radio station to listen to for news in an emergency. It also suggests downloading the Wānaka App for information, although EMO has not made contact with the Wānaka App regarding broadcasting emergency news.

Wānaka App co-owner Tony O’Regan said the company has a backup power supply in case of emergency but it’s reliant on internet connectivity.

“What is not clear is how information will get to us in an emergency, where the communications centre will be established and who will manage it,” he said.

Radio Wānaka station manager Mike Regal has a portable transmitter which he plans to use in an emergency “if the building is still standing”.

The radio station is owned by NZME and Mike doesn’t know if that business has an emergency backup plan. 

He says there is a long-standing expectation that a hired generator would arrive on the back of a truck in the event of an emergency, but said he doesn’t know with certainty whether that will happen.

And even if a generator arrives and the transmitter is working, there’s no certainty that the internet will be available.

“The real issue is: even if we can supply it, can people receive it?

“Wānaka could still be cut off.” 

Medical care: ‘a little bit unknown’

Wānaka Lakes Health Centre manager Heather McClintock (landlord of the building that contains Wānaka’s two medical centres) said she has been trying to be part of the conversation about emergency planning for the past seven years 

Wānaka Lakes Medical Centre manager Heather McClintock. PHOTO: Wānaka App

“I’d like to see a coordinated approach to medical care is ensured,” she said.

Both medical centres are generator capable, she said, but the building doesn’t have its own generator.

She said she has been told the health centre will be a top priority for receiving a generator in the event of an emergency.

The building has a very good earthquake plan, and the provision to provide power in a long term outage, but she said the provision of medical services in an emergency “is a little bit unknown”.

“We do need to have some more resilience and community partnering in these groups.”

Wānaka Medical general manager Michael James said the practice has an emergency response plan.

“I believe that in a major emergency Civil Defence (or a like organisation) will run any regional/local response to a disaster. We have not been involved in any disaster planning by such an organisation,” he said.

Aspiring Medical manager Caroline Stark said the practice would “work in partnership with all relevant responding agencies to ensure appropriate care was provided to the community”.  

“We have contingency plans in place which would be activated in accordance with the regional or civil organisation that would be leading the response.”

The Otago rescue helicopter lands outside the Wānaka Lakes Health Centre. PHOTO: Wānaka App

Hato Hone St John external communications specialist Amy Milne confirmed that St John would provide ambulance emergency response in an emergency.

“Patients would be transported to the medical centres and potentially re-triaged,” she said.

“However … the approach and our role would depend on the type of Civil Defence emergency. Our focus during large scale Civil Defence emergencies is triage and transport.”

Bill Nicoll said providing power to medical services would be a priority, and QLDC will work with businesses to ensure they are ready and prepared - including their capacity for backup power.

He did not say why that work had not already happened; and he said he did not know who had made promises to the health centre and Radio Wānaka about supplying generators.

EMO: ‘Unsure of specifics’

When the Wānaka App contacted EMO Queenstown Lakes team leader Dan Andrew, he said “emergency services have their own plans in place for any potential outages that may impact their operations and ability to respond”.

When pressed further, Dan said he was “unsure of the specifics of what occurred at the medical centre or with radio coverage however we have strong relationships with partner agencies and lifeline organisations and encourage businesses to have Emergency Management and Business Continuity Plans in place to enable continuity of service to their communities.”

Dan told the Wānaka App he had not spoken to the medical centres or communication companies but he intended to at some stage.

He said he wasn’t aware of what the medical centre or broadcasters had in place for backup power generation.

“I’m not across every individual business.” 

So, who is?

A close look at who does what in the event of a significant emergency reveals the fact, as Bill Nicoll said, “the cavalry isn’t coming” to help us.

“Civil Defence is not the cavalry,” he said. “Civil Defence is a collection of agencies working collaboratively. There is a constant focus on trying to build relationships.”

There are four levels of operation (monitoring, supporting, coordinating, and directing) and QLDC has a group of volunteers trained in Civil Defence protocols.

EMO (part of the ORC) is assigned into this district, and works with QLDC to “support the development of community response groups to ensure that communities are well prepared for emergencies”, Bill said. 

EMO now has as many as four emergency officers, a “huge capacity increase” from the one person previously, Bill said.

That extra capacity should enable emergency managers to “touch base” constantly with critical areas such as communication networks and health services, he said.

In addition, the AF8 programme offers scientific modelling, coordinated response planning, and community engagement designed to build resilience to the next Alpine Fault earthquake.

Scientists estimate there is a 75 percent probability of an Alpine Fault earthquake occurring in the next 50 years, and there is a four out of five chance it will be a magnitude 8+ event.

The AF8 programme’s Safer framework, which Bill calls “a brilliant piece of work”, outlines how a complicated multi agency response would occur in an AF8 scenario.

It contains extensive resource libraries, pre-planning, and response priorities, and has “quite a sophisticated system to ensure there are backups”, he said.

Bill said there are also sector groups established in the district to talk about preparedness planning. 

Another key project is the Otago Gets Ready community database, where people can register resources, such as small generators, which would be shared in the event of an emergency.

Read more: New tool helps Otago ‘get ready’

These projects lead the community to have “a great sense of self responsibility”, Bill said.

Aurora operations and network performance general manager Matt Settle said Aurora has communication channels with Otago CDEM (Civil Defence Emergency Management), and the business is “working with local communities to identify community hubs it can assist with mobile generation” in extended power outages.

Where does the new community response fit in?

Mick says the WCRG sees itself as “a pretty small piece in the overall Civil Defence operation”.

In the event of an emergency the WCRG would operate from the Lake Wānaka Centre, while the QLDC/EMO would be based at the Wānaka Recreation Centre in Three Parks.

Members of the WCRG include vice chair Matt McPhee, secretary Daina Wallace, treasurer Katy McPherson, and committee members Richard Wallace and Lindsey Turner, along with 12-14 others.

They are actively seeking more members.

“The more people we have as members, the greater the coverage; and the wider the group of people with skills and resources, the better,” Mick said.

The group isn’t just hoping for good planning, they are working hard to achieve it.

“Human nature is notoriously bad at planning so that’s where we’re hoping to plug a gap,” Katy told the Wānaka App. 

Matt added: “We’re not being hopeful, we’re making sure”. 

One of their main messages is to promote the Otago Regional Council’s Otago Gets Ready programme.

“It tells people what to do, it doesn’t say who will you go to for help or who will be there,” Mick said.

Another priority for the group is communication with the community during an emergency, Matt said.

The group would be out checking the streets during an emergency.

“Our function is really one of checking that people are okay street by street; and feeding back information we glean from people coming to the Lake Wānaka Centre to EMO,” Mick said.

“If we found a collapsed house with people inside we could contact EMO who would liaise with emergency services.”

The group plans to buy a couple of generators which would be based at the Lake Wānaka Centre for its operations.

“We’re hoping to have contacts with hire organisations which have generators so we can access them in the event of an emergency.”

The group also plans to identify areas of risk, find out what needs people have and what facilities are available.

“We will be approaching organisations - such as business groups - asking what are your risks in the event of an emergency, what will your needs be?

“It’s very easy for people … running a business to put it to the back of their minds,” he said, but he echoed Bill’s (and the QLDC’s) message that people must make their own plans.

“We want to get people in the community aware and thinking of what might happen and read the community plan.

“We’re fresh on the block, we’re mustard keen, we have someone on the team who has been involved in the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes,” Mick said.

He says the group has its work cut out for it with a “very large area”, and initially it may not work beyond the Wānaka urban area.

“It would be great if we could get someone from Hāwea and other places to join us with a view to going back into their own community to set things up for themselves.

“Different areas might have different needs.”

The group will be putting out a leaflet in conjunction with QLDC explaining what it does, modelled on community response groups in the Queenstown area (Jacks Point and Kelvin Heights) which each have their own community response leaflet.

“We’re currently working on that and hope to have it out early in the New Year. The next thing will be leaflet drops and knocking on doors,” Mick said.

Resources

Community response plans are available for Wānaka, Lake Hāwea and Hāwea Flat, and Makarora.

Mick said the WCRG will have input into an upcoming revision of the Wānaka plan.

The ORC Otago Gets Ready website outlines what to do before, during, and after each type of emergency (earthquakes, floods, landslides, storms, tsunami and volcanoes). Find out more here.

Anyone interested in joining the Wānaka Community Response Group should contact Mick Hollyer on [email protected].