Exercise Phoenix tests staff

BY KRIS DANDO - KAPI-MANA NEWS

An annual earthquake exercise was an eye-opener for Porirua City Council staff who were "thrown in the deep end".

It went something like this: at 8.27am on November 12 a 7.6 magnitude earthquake occurred on the Wellington fault.

Although 10 kilometres deep, the epicentre was located in Petone  it did not create a tsunami but extensive damage was reported right across the region.

In Porirua, this included the collapse of North City Shopping Centre, the Mungavin and Paremata bridges, Kenepuru Hospital running at limited capacity, petrol leaks at Mobil on Mana Esplanade, fires breaking out, cracks on State Highway 1, slips and phone lines cut.

Water and food supplies are low, sewage treatment plants are possibly damaged and people are trying to get home along the state highways, but some are trapped.

Confronting all these headaches were PCC staff, many of whom had little or no training for this  but that will happen in the coming months. They come from all parts of the council, from policy analysts to communications, management to parks officers.

It was a chance to see how people worked under stress, came up with solutions and highlighted positives and their failings, said PCC's emergency management officer Trevor Farmer, who was an observer during the two-day exercise.

"They are at a huge disadvantage and this is the first time any of them will have been exposed to something like this, they have been thrown in the deep end. But it's valuable that we do this now, it's great for them to go through this process, even before they have the training next year.

"They're coming up with interesting ideas to make things work better."

The operations centre in the emergency management office under the Canopies was split in two, with one team looking at the "big picture" (what will happen in days to come) and the other developing tactics to address immediate concerns and contact people in the field.

On Friday, the regional council and other local authorities in Wellington also became involved in the scenario, dubbed Exercise Phoenix.

"It really stretches the imagination but we have a statutory responsibility to do this work. It's new systems and new people but we're getting there," Mr Farmer said.