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Media Statement
For immediate release
5 October 2009

Local Government Online welcomes Civil Defence review

The inconsistent response by local councils to last week’s tsunami warnings has once again highlighted the need for each council to have a robust emergency preparedness network to ensure lives are not lost says Local Government Online GM, Cassandra Crowley.

The aftermath of the management around the tsunami warnings has highlighted major cracks in the way the public is alerted when emergencies occur.

John Hamilton spoke on Friday morning in an interview on Radio NZ about the two key issues that needed addressing:

1) Ensuring warnings to the Civil Defence sector and the public are as swift and accurate as possible;

2) Making sure the messages are as clear as possible.

However another conundrum exists for local authorities - how do they reach vulnerable residents with an immediate clear message that communicates a course of action in an emergency scenario?

“A reliance on sirens, loudhailers or “dumb” technology such as mass texting highlights that some councils are less well prepared than their neighbouring organisations to react in a time of crisis,” says Local Government Online GM, Cassandra Crowley.

“The fact is that many local authorities just don’t have the tools needed to do the job.”

Hutt Valley is using an emergency preparedness network called Readynet that assembles specific information about sites and groups and provides it to the Emergency Services as and when it is required. It can also send out “smart” text alerts via batching and prioritising.

Local Controller for Hutt Valley Emergency Management office, Paul Nickalls says, “Readynet is an excellent crisis management tool and we have used it on a number of occasions to notify specific people of an impending or current issue.

“It’s also an excellent planning tool and a tool that we can use to target specific audiences - this is all achieved at 43c per resident per year.”

Hutt City determined that there was no significant threat to the Hutt Valley from the Tsunami and did not use the Readynet ALERT function last week.

Matthew Nolan, CEO of Readynet created the emergency preparedness network after ten years experience in emergency management. He knows exactly what is needed in a crisis – clear communications to the right people, in the right place at the right time.

“Unacceptable delays, patchy communications and overlooked sites characterised last week’s response to this potential national crisis,” says Nolan.

“It’s unacceptable that in today’s connected society lives could have been lost due to the tardiness of communications and essentially gaping holes in the communications strategy.

“The beauty of Readynet is that the system limits overload because it has the capability to text specific groups of people rather than a simply sending a “blanket” text which can be ineffective – as unfortunately was the case with two Councils last week”.

“I am pleased a formal review into the Civil Defence response will be held and I urge the Minister to look at how Readynet can offer local authorities an emergency warning system that will ensure their areas are as prepared as they can be in the event of an emergency,” Nolan added.

ENDS

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