Flood damage in the Esk Valley in Hawke's Bay. Photo / RNZ, Tess Brunton
By Alexa Cook of RNZ
A Civil Defence boss has told a coronial inquest he can’t believe that, 14 years on from the devastating Christchurch earthquake, there is still no centralised information platform during emergencies.
Former Civil Defence group controller Ian Macdonald was giving evidence at the hearing into the 13 deaths linked to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay.
On Friday, he told the court the absence of a common operating platform-and-picture (COP) was raised after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, but a lack of funding held it back.
“That tool is the most important tool that should be given to the system,” he said. “Why we don’t have the tool... that has been discussed at a national level since Christchurch.
“I cannot understand how this is not in place. If a system cannot implement those sort of recommendations, then there has to be an issue with the system.”
The second phase of a coroner’s inquest into the 13 deaths linked to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay focuses on warnings given to the public and the emergency response.
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell agrees more investment is needed on emergency management systems, but it’s unclear when that will happen.
Local authorities’ emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle has been highlighted in several critical inquiries.
Macdonald described how the system should cover all agencies, including Fire and Emergency.
“We need to see 111 calls coming in,” he said. “We do not have one place where we can see all the information from emergency services.
“All of that information needs to be brought together, so then we can work out intelligence... the ‘so what’ questions.
“If we don’t have that and we get a disaster like Gabrielle, it’s very hard to manage that event or any event of that size.
“I think it is the pivotal system that we need in New Zealand.”
Documents showed authorities had known for 20 years that the lack of a common operating platform posed a big safety risk.
“The public do not always have the information they need to make timely, good decisions that protect people and their property,” a 2018 government report said.
During Cyclone Gabrielle, Macdonald was on leave in the South Island for a hiking holiday near Queenstown.
He told the court how his bosses had approved his leave – he had 50 days owing – and it had been booked since mid-2022.
When he left the region, there were no weather watches nor warnings issued for Hawke’s Bay.
“Before I left, I had discussions with the alternate group controllers, Edaan Lennan and Iain Maxwell, to make sure they were comfortable to act as group controller, if that were needed,” he said.
“They both confirmed that they were available and happy to do so. Both were experienced in emergency management and I had worked with them before in various responses.
“I have full confidence in their abilities as controllers.”
Macdonald had a final call with Lennan and Maxwell on the evening of February 10, and then was out of phone coverage until the afternoon of Monday, February 13.
The cyclone struck Hawke’s Bay late that night and because people weren’t evacuated in time, hundreds of residents climbed on to their rooftops to escape rising floodwaters.
Macdonald choked with emotion and tried to hold back tears, as he described arriving at Queenstown Airport on the morning of Tuesday, February 14, trying to fly back to Hawke’s Bay.
“I learnt that all flights into Hawke’s Bay had been cancelled,” he said. “I could not contact Edaan or my family at this stage.
“I managed to get as far as Wellington later that morning, so I went to the NCMC [National Crisis Management Centre] at the Beehive, arriving there at about 11am.”
He finally arrived in Hawke’s Bay at about 9am on Wednesday, February 15.
The families’ lawyer, Desley Horton, told Macdonald how the families felt let down by him, because he was away when the region needed him most.
“I fully understand where the families are coming from,” he said, but he also explained there was a handover process and that the civil defence system did not rely on one person’s role.
The subject of EMAs – or Emergency Mobile Alerts – was discussed at length during the inquest in an effort to understand whether people could have been evacuated earlier.
An official emergency wasn’t declared until 4.04am on February 14 and an Emergency Mobile Alert wasn’t issued until 5.19am. By then, two people had already drowned in Eskdale.
When asked whether the threshold for issuing evacuation alerts should be lowered, Macdonald advised caution.
“The more you issue EMAs, the less effective they become,” he said. “We need to be very careful before we loosen up the EMA.”
Macdonald described how, since then, he’d seen an “eroding” of guidelines around when to issue an alert. He described receiving a tsunami evacuation alert when he was in the middle of the South Island.
“The problem you have is, if people are not listening to the EMA when they really need to listen to it, they will be in danger,” he said.
Coroner Erin Woolley questioned Macdonald on what he thought would improve the current emergency management system.
He replied it “definitely needs a rebuild”, given the frequency and intensity of weather events because of climate change, as it was increasing the expectations of what Civil Defence delivered.
“There needs to be a serious look at the whole system from top to bottom. Unless that happens, there won’t be change.”
Staffing of Civil Defence roles during emergencies was also discussed, as often people are pulled out of district council roles to help.
“The issue is we do not have a common training capability development course for New Zealand for Civil Defence staff. We need the same standards across the country,” Macdonald said, explaining that this would require monitored training courses where people had to achieve certain standards.
“There is always going to be real tension between council staff, their level of training and what they do as BAU [business as usual].
“Experience is the key thing, but how do you expose people to that, unless you go on deployments overseas for example.”
The former Civil Defence boss wanted to see more deliberate focus on the crisis leadership and management for local government staff.
“Most council staff, even in senior roles in EOCs [Emergency Operations Centres] and GECCs [Group Emergency Coordination Centres], just do not understand the pressure and what happens during a disaster... because they’ve never experienced it.”