Senior firefighters consider the regional head of Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) was “out of his depth” during Auckland’s fatal floods and did not accurately correspond data from at-capacity emergency workers to Mayor Wayne Brown - as the formal review into the emergency was this week delayed.
The Herald has obtained partial access to an internal survey of NZ Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) members who believe there were numerous shortcomings in the response to the January 27 record-breaking floods.
It has also emerged that Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick was turned away from the Civil Defence and Auckland Emergency Management headquarters while attempting to get information about the state of her electorate and what safety messages she should be disseminating.
The declaration to place Auckland in a state of emergency was controversially not signed by Mayor Brown until 9.27pm on January 27 - and not publicly announced until after 10pm.
Senior sources within Fenz have contradicted the statements of the top official that night, Auckland regional manager Ron Devlin, who the day after the downpour in a January 28 press conference indicated the situation was under control early that Friday afternoon.
“The inside information we have that we were being told was that Fire and Emergency was yelling help between 4 and 5 o’clock, saying you need a civil defence emergency to be declared,” a Fenz source said.
“Because the information we’ve got, is that our fire and emergency people under Ron were saying between 4 and 5 o’clock we need to go to a civil defence emergency, we’re being overwhelmed.”
However, in the January 28 press conference with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, Devlin disputed such messages were being sent from on-the-ground firefighters and Fenz.
“Senior Police and fire officers started to assess the risks and needs around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, 1600 hours, and we continued to do that right through the process as the weather event was unfolding,” Devlin said.
“We’re all very experienced in this area, we’ve dealt with it many times and we were judging what was coming through from the data and the intel we were getting. We considered around 6 o’clock should we ask for this [state of emergency]? We did not because we didn’t feel at that time it was needed. When we did ask for it later in the evening we had the declaration within minutes of requesting it.”
Devlin said that he and his team were constantly keeping on top of all the “data and intel that’s been fed into our operation centres, and we make those decisions” around the state of emergency move.
A Fenz press release on Friday 5.07pm said “every fire truck in Auckland is responding to the priority calls” and they were responding to over 400 emergency calls.
One senior Auckland firefighter who started his shift at 6pm on January 27 said by the time he got in his truck they were only responding to jobs that were life-threatening.
“It’s a situation I’ve never seen before. I’ve been in the job for 35 years and I’ve been to a lot of flooding over the years but I’ve never seen flooding like that and the calls that Fenz were responding to,” the firefighter said.
“They decided themselves that they were only going to go to life-threatening calls, so all the other flooding calls just for property flooding were ignored. They didn’t say that publicly but that’s what they did, because they didn’t have the resources. I reckon they made that call very early on in the piece.”
The senior firefighter was also highly critical of Devlin’s own competency in the role on that night and in general since he had taken it on.
“My personal perspective of Ron Devlin ... I don’t have any time for that guy at all,” the firefighter said.
“The guy is out of his depth in Auckland. He came from a smaller area to become the region commander in Auckland ... I don’t know how it all went down, but him saying, ‘we respond to these types of events all the time and many many times’. I’m thinking hang on a minute, we’ve never responded to flooding like this in Auckland ever before. Not on this scale.”
Fenz deputy chief executive Russell Wood did not respond to the Herald’s direct questions about the messaging Devlin was providing to Mayor Brown, or what data he was being provided by on-the-ground firefighters.
“We won’t be commenting on statements or decisions made by our people during the response to the Auckland flooding, as the Fire and Emergency response may form part of the independent review announced by the Auckland mayor,” Wood said.
“I can confirm we will also be reviewing our actions internally to ensure we are providing the best response possible to New Zealanders.”
Auckland Central MP Swarbrick was also facing hurdles on the afternoon and evening of January 27 as she attempted unsuccessfully to get information from Fenz management and Civil Defence.
“As it became clear that we were not facing a regular weather event on Friday afternoon, I reached out to the Mayor’s office, Council’s Civil Defence Team, Minister of Civil Defence and Fire Emergency NZ. I requested any information that was available to address people’s concerns and understanding of what was unfolding,” Swarbrick said.
“I did not receive any certain information back from the requisite authorities so, in the complete vacuum, I reached out to our frontline firefighters who shared that things were at a crisis level unlike anything that they had seen before. From that point, I sought access to any briefings or information available. I was told by Fenz that I could not have this nor enter their operational area.”
The findings of an independent review set up by the mayor of the city’s immediate response to the January 27 floods was due on March 6 - but has now been delayed until mid-March.
Brown commissioned the review to be undertaken by former police commissioner Mike Bush on January 30.
“The inquiry will look into all aspects, all people, myself included, plus the professionals, plus even the Government’s involvement in the response … lessons must be learned,” Brown said.
However, Auckland Councillor Chris Darby opposed the mayor’s decision to personally commission such a review - and formally wrote to Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty for the Government to commission their own.
“There are also issues with the mandate of the review announced by Mayor Brown,” Darby wrote to Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAunlty.
“The decision to review was only canvassed informally with some councillor members of the Civil Defence and Emergency Management Committee, and those members were not presented with the proposed terms of the review. There is also the potential for conflict of interest that may be ascribed to our mayor in commissioning the review and largely deciding the terms of reference when criticism has been levelled at both Mayor Brown and Auckland Council.”
The Herald has also obtained an insight into the results of a New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) survey of 144 of their members into their concerns over the quality of the response to January 27 floods.
Sixty-seven per cent of firefighters responded “No” to the questions of whether they had the appropriate resources to deal with the incidents they attended.
Fifty-four per cent responded “No” to the question of whether they felt the level of communication from FENZ during and after the emergency was adequate.
The survey found there was a lack of welfare support on the day with “crews left to fend for themselves around food/water as they were too busy to get back to station”.
Sixty-nine per cent responded “No” to whether Fenz supplied wet weather gear fit for purpose.
Lack of appropriate wet weather gear was mentioned 23 times in the survey, vehicles that could better cope with floodwater was mentioned 15 times, and the need for boats and specialist water rescue equipment was mentioned 26 times.
“Lack of access to any water equipment to enable staff to do their jobs was the main theme that came through. Eg boats, rafts, stretchers that could float. Most gear used on the day was begged, borrowed or “acquired” by staff on the ground trying to do the job in front of them, including carrying out rescues,” a source said in summarising the responses.
“Vehicles that could perform better in floodwaters was another clear theme coming through. If Firefighters had strictly complied with the current Fenz policy of not driving through floodwaters higher than the wheel nuts, then the majority of trucks would not have even left their stations during the floods. Once again firefighters had to take action, act outside of policy and just get the job done.”
Decision-making from “above” - from Fenz management - was also considered to be too slow.
Off-duty crew were also “not utilised effectively”, the survey found. At any one time there is one-quarter of staff on duty, leaving nearly 400 firefighters that could have been called upon to help.
At its peak, 20 fire engines were on-site battling the blaze.