Gisborne tsunami emergency exercise a success: Temo boss

The Tairāwhiti Emergency Management Office's operations centre at Potae Avenue in Lytton West got a solid workout last week in Exercise Chilly Dog.

The Tairāwhiti Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Potae Ave-Lytton West was a hive of activity last week for Exercise Chilly Dog.

Representatives of various agencies and organisations and other individuals filled the Tairāwhiti Emergency Co-ordination Centre (ECC).

The exercise simulated a real-time response to a magnitude 9.5 earthquake off Chile which had, in theory, created a tsunami warning for Tairāwhiti.

“The nine-hour exercise was overseen by Nema [the National Emergency Management Agency] representatives and involved a full activation of the ECC through the welfare, intelligence, logistics and public information functions,” Tairāwhiti Emergency Management Office (Temo) group controller Ben Green said.

“While the presented scenario was for a distant-source tsunami that allowed 12-ish hours of warning, I reminded everyone that if the Hikurangi Trench delivered a large tsunami-generating earthquake, the region would have just 30 minutes before impact, underlining the importance of preparedness.”

Green said the exercise achieved what was set out for it to do.

“We’ve got a requirement to test our whole system and it worked well,” he said.

“For those taking part, between 80 to 90 people, it was the next best thing to actually having to do it for real.”

Green said he intended to run a follow-up exercise before the end of the year.