Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc across the North Island, with communities cut off and unable to call for assistance. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc across the North Island, with communities cut off and unable to call for assistance. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Opinion by Kerry Worsnop
Opinion
It has been more than three months since Cyclone Gabrielle’s destructive rampage.
Three months of mucking in, cleaning out, patching up, and reviewing myriad horrible things that have collided with people’s lives, the local economy and environment after the storm.
But in all of these reviews – nothing isyet to appear that adequately addresses a fatal flaw in the cyclone saga, and I literally mean fatal.
At the height of the storm, when entire communities were more vulnerable than many would have been in their lives – our emergency contact system went down and stayed down.
No one will ever know if those who lost their lives were desperately trying to call for help.
Illustration / Rod Emmerson
Much will depend on when services were cut and how long into the storm these victims of Cyclone Gabrielle managed to hold on. The horrifying truth is that the longer they held on, the less likely they were to be able to ring for help.
In 2023, when a chatbot can write you a thesis, a drone can deliver your pizza, and cars can drive themselves, we utterly failed to maintain one of the most critical connections we have for preserving life—the ability to dial 111 and have someone answer.
Anyone who tried dialling 111 that fateful night likely didn’t even get a dial tone. This would continue for days while everyone, especially those in rural communities, did hazardous jobs like traversing broken roads to check on neighbours, delivering supplies, reconnecting communities, and checking on vulnerable stock. Thousands of people were on their own.
While our battery radios broadcast to the rest of the country that “we are all okay”, those of us listening wondered how anyone could actually know.
The reality is that those in charge didn’t know. They had no way of knowing, and it wasn’t rectified until helicopters landed in these cut-off communities and manually gathered information.
Local Civil Defence controllers did their best, but with communications limited to satellite phones and many cut off entirely, their reach was limited, placing massive pressure on volunteers desperate to ensure the safety of their communities.
Someone, somewhere, needs to be held accountable for the magnitude of these failures, given that the most basic expectation of any citizen of this country should be that if you are in danger – you can call for help, and someone will answer you.
Kerry Worsnop wants answers for the failure of the 111 system during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / RNZ
We have a Minister for Civil Defence and numerous people responsible for the successful and reliable deployment of communications and technology in a disaster.
The fact that this system failed under conditions not unknown to this country - we have had cyclones before, after all - is an indictment on our preparedness and calls into question whether those responsible for our communication networks comprehend the significance of having them working.
It could mean life or death, and there is no sound reason to accept these failures as anything short of a disaster.
A review into these failures must surely be under way somewhere, perhaps lost under the piles of emergency budgets for silt clearance, road reinstatement and bridge repairs – and while there is no doubt that infrastructure is vital, we can’t afford to forget that life is the most precious thing of all.
For those who went through the harrowing terror of the darkest night of their lives, completely alone and unable to access help, a review will be cold comfort; they really need to know that it can never happen again.
- Kerry Worsnop is a sheep and beef farmer, environmental consultant, formerly Gisborne Federated Farmers vice-president and Gisborne district councillor.
