Civil Defence volunteers going above and beyond in Whanganui

Civil Defence plays a big role in preparing for emergencies, educating in schools, and mitigating hazards, among other things. Photo / Bevan Conley

Whanganui's Civil Defence emergency manager, Tim Crowe, says there is so much about the work at Civil Defence the public does not see - especially that of the many volunteers.

"There are only two people in Whanganui that do civil defence as a paid job: myself, and Anthony Edwards. Everyone else is a volunteer," he said.

One of the key roles for the volunteers was defence co-ordination, which involved co-ordinating with other agencies to make responses to events more efficient and effective.

"For one event there could be around 27 things you'd have to respond to, and these are the people who figure all that out and put the response together."

An award ceremony held in the Cooks Gardens Events Centre last week recognised that service.

The seven current and former Whanganui District Council staff members presented with Civil Defence and Emergency Management Long Service certificates and medals were: Darryl Couper (30-plus years), Frances Henderson (28 years), Stuart Hylton (29 years), Sandy Nepia (24 years), Graeme Paulger (24 years), Eric Sim (23 years) and Dion Walker (29 years).

All are current Council staff members, except Frances Henderson and Stuart Hylton.

Emergency Management Minister, Kieran McAnulty, said together they tallied up over 180 years of collective service to civil defence in the Whanganui district.

"Their service gives us a very strong backbone of experience, local knowledge and commitment."

Crowe said that for many years they had volunteered their time for training and preparation, and responding to events - on top of their day job.

He said the number of Civil Defence volunteers changed all the time, as it involved community volunteers who would step up on different occasions, and there was always a need for more volunteers in Whanganui.

"It's not an organised group who are sitting there waiting; it's many members of the community who have received training or had experience."

Tim Crowe said there was always a need for more volunteers in Whanganui. Photo / Stuart Munro

"These individuals are the ones often in the background organising things, and the public generally doesn't see them."

He said they could work long hours during emergencies.

"When there are events to respond to, generally people do an 8-hour shift, which is usually at the end of their working day until the early hours of the morning, and they're not paid extra to do it.

"Sometimes it includes training three or four times a year or after-hours training, and if they are on call they have to be in the office within fifteen minutes to complete effective-immediate responses."

Those who received awards had had a wide range of involvement with Civil Defence.

Their involvement ranged from planning, logistics and response management, mapping, geographical information services and more.

They helped respond to various storm and flood events over their years of service, including working continually throughout the 10-day Whanganui flood declaration response in 2015, and again in the 2017 flood declaration and evacuations.

For those who were on-call emergency management duty officers, for one week each month they needed to be immediately available to monitor, evaluate and advise on threats, warnings or unusual events, as well as to activate the Emergency Operations Centre.

Due to their extensive experience, they would also help to mentor other volunteers.

They also played key roles in the Council and other agencies' Covid-19 response in 2020.

McAnulty said New Zealand was internationally renowned for civil defence.

"That strength comes down to the personnel, experience and connection to the community."

Crowe said Civil Defence freed up other services such as police and fire and emergency to do what they did best.

"For example, you don't want to use fire resources to manage and organise other things when their best use is to rescue people and put out fires."

"Sometimes when people think of civil defence they think it's people rapelling outside windows in helicopters, but what we're more effective at doing is using technology and knowledge to organise and co-ordinate things," Crowe said.

"Often its not seen, but the results are."

He said Civil Defence was not just for when events occurred, but also for preparing for those events, educating in schools, avoiding and mitigating the impacts of different hazards, then communicating that with the community and guiding recovery following events.

"Floods are the most frequent issue we deal with, but we also deal with other consequences of bad storms, such as landslides.

"The 2015 flood wasn't just a flood, it was a very large storm. There were also a significant amount of landslides which affected roads and properties, which cut off communities."