Questions over Auckland Council response to flooding

A review of Auckland Council's response to flash flooding during the storm of July 15 reveals that the media knew more about what was happening.

A review of Auckland Council's response to flooding during the storm of July 15 reveals that the media knew more about its effects than its own civil defence emergency managers.

"We had to rely on the Fire Service or someone ringing the call centre," said council director of civil defence and emergency management, John Dragicevich.

"Social media posted quicker than us.

"If we could link into that, we would offer real-time information.

"In the East Coast Rd flooding, by the time someone called the Fire Service, someone had taken a video of it and given it to the TV1 news and it was screened before the news."

Mr Dragicevich has recommended to the council civil defence committee that the council "reviews and enhances how we monitor and review media and social media channels, including how we can capture live flooding data via public sources."

He said it was one of the main lessons from what was a "normal winter storm."

Committee chairman Councillor Sharon Stewart said keeping communities aware, prepared and safe from natural hazards such as floods was paramount and she welcomed the review.

"We have a lot of learning to do every time a disaster happens.

"We learned we need to improve our communication across all emergency agencies."

It wanted more information on the state of arterial roads from the Auckland Transport Operational Centre.

This has cameras, monitors and variable message signs to advise about incidents and is run jointly by the NZ Transport Agency and Auckland Transport - a council-controlled organisation.

Auckland Transport spokesman Mark Hannan said that on the stormy night there were regular calls between staff at the centre and the civil defence team, updating them on the developing situation.

"We are working with civil defence to see if there are areas where we could improve that communication."

Mr Dragicevich said the storm did not affect all of Auckland and all flooding problems were responded to by emergency services and followed up by the council's stormwater drainage unit.

The storm of July 15

• 30mm per hour rainfall intensities.
• 77.4mm hit parts of Auckland from 4pm to 9pm.
• 5 main areas flooded - Henderson Valley, Waitakere, Papatoetoe, Papakura and Auckland International Airport.
• 117 requests for service were received.
• 17 emergency calls about house floods.
• 8 homes had habitable floors affected.