Are you ready for a Disaster?

Kia Ora,

Disasters always happen to everyone else. New Zealand likes to deny they will happen when you talk about them.

But as has been shown they do happen one after another. As one media person said the other day in Australia & New Zealand of late it has become like Disaster ping pong where our people are off helping the other then vice versa in a very short time since September 4th 2010.

Had a good comment from Shawn Marie that basically talks about society now been risk adverse.

The one thing they may not realize is Civil Defence in New Zealand is apart from the very top is voluntary, with a lot of well meaning people getting involved. The issue is many don't understand the system, the consequences of their decisions & how quickly they have to be made. In the first few hours quick decisive action needs to be taken & that is not what you have been seeing or what I saw when part of Civil Defence. It was one of the few organizations where the very top have been very impressive & up to speed, whilst the remainder are off extremely varying levels but much lower in standards or decision making.

My old room mate Simon is of the opinion that in this blog I might need to give them a break for now. Now he is a good military man & knows we would get back & evalute it as soon as possible to find lessons learnt.

But all that happened here the first time was everyone patted themselves on the back. Not only that you have to look at the different reaction in Australia. Immediately after the floods they launched an inquiry to see lessons learnt which they then extended to cover when cyclone hit shortly afterwards. No inquiry here on initial shake. We did great! Well many parts & people did, but bits didn't & they are the same bits that seemed to struggle this time.

So the comments need to be out there now in the hope the message gets through. Especially when there is the likelyhood of another big shake shortly.

It was a lot of little things that meant the likes of the police & those of us helping on the cordon that first day were getting the angry response too. Very quickly through the police we were told to get people moving either North along Colombo street or to Hagley park where a processing centre would give information updates. It wasn't happening & people were then been directed to headquarters at the new art Gallery or the nearest triage area in Victoria Square. This all increased the frustration & anger we had to deal with at the cordon.

I still hope that young boy we didn't have time to deal with found his parents.

All that had to happen was, as we did on the Worcester Street bridge whilst turning most away, placed those waiting for people to be rescued from Claradon Towers to one side to watch wait & pass any information that came to us.

I know Simon would of done it. It is in our awesome training(the training that New Zealand businesses doesn't really recognize but they do overseas) from the New Zealand Military & in our make up. But the people setting these things up are not taking the control they need too & also were probably overwhelmed.

Anyway yesterday went with a good man by name of Bernie in his distinctive vehicle to carryout anti looting patrols. Informed the police who just asked for certain points to be observed.

Others want to help but what they don't realize is reason police were comfortable with us doing it was the understanding of our legal powers. Nil!

Obviously emotions are high so any Scum caught people want dealt too. That is vigilante behaviour & right now would make things worse. So by having a security license it shows we are aware of the law & will stick to what are basically the rules of engagement. Look, observe & report any criminal activity no matter what we would like to do.

Did two short patrols yesterday. First in Bernie's distinctive vehicle right out as far as Southshore. The locals after September the 4th seemed to be handling it quite well although without power their communication was either by transistor radio or the paper. Many offering well water, others bar b queing the food from their freezer & offering it to anyone.

A lot of smiles at the vehicle & we stopped to talk to people. I think that was a good help as much as the anti looting part. Just passing on our stories & what we had seen in the rest of the city. On one street with large amounts of liquifaction & large sink holes three relatively young children were on the end of shovels clearing around their car. It just what you do now.

As well as been the driver since my vehicle is probably toast in the middle of the city, Bernie is also a friend of the organizer of the Student army & so was taking some photos to report to Sam Johnson as a sort of recce of where to send people to help.

We only saw two suspicious entities. One vehicle which on seeing a contractor or local was manning a roadblock turned away & one person on a pushbike.

Last night Bernie had to attend to domestic duties & at times like these those with families especially young ones as he has they take priority.

So took to the push bike. Now during the day we saw alot of peole right across the city areas we moved through packing up & moving out either tempoarily with just mattresses or on a more permanent basis with furniture the lot. I see even the Wizard has left for good.

Last night as you cycled along you noticed that many properties gave the appearance of empty but those that appeared occupied many had a party in full swing. The police are reporting a lot of this with associated issues.

Many will say that or drugs will be their way of coping but that is the worse thing people can do. Right now people need to be level headed. There are concerns that disease could break out as often happens in situations like this. Due to the nature of the New Zealand environment we hope not, not to mention the awesome work been carried out to restore services such as water, power & sewrage.

Across the board the destruction is much worse than September the 4th. Many locals were getting their own neighbourhood back together. One young guy had a wheelbarrow full of sand & was putting it down at one end of one of the few usuable bridges on the east side of the city as it has lifted at that end so there was a drop onto the road or a lip to drive up on the other side.

Well after our recce patrols of yesterday we are planning to go on an extended patrol this evening. I see the police are planning a large presence as well as reinforcements arrive in the city.

In such a situation the Scum should think about their own families not ripping off someone elses.

People need to think though are they prepared for a disaster?

The amount of people on the roads who probably didn't need to be as they did not prepare after the last one has been unbelievable. It was like the belief that "Ok its happened, we have had it, won't happen again so forget it" well it can happen again & again.

That actually has been my point over security & suicide bombers at the Rugby world Cup. New Zealand sort of plans for one incident where as say with suicide bombers if one hits another is coming.

It was actually a point made by a US engineer about inspecting buildings here. He worked on the 9/11 buildings. The difference there he said was you knew nothing else was going to happen but with earthquakes they just keep coming. That means the risk doesn't really diminish.

Again it was also the point made by the police officer when advising we were heading off on patrol. New Zealanders just weren't that ready. It doesn't happen here. Even though we knew one was coming sometime.

It also shows that we need to look at why things were often built a certain way in the past.

Our old Ministry of Works was found to have over engineered projects probably in the wake of the 1931 Napier earthquake & after the first shake those buildings were seen to have survived quite well in comparison. Where as in particular this time some of the more modern earthquake prepared buildings have had quite serious failures from buildings collapsing to the emergency exit stairways collapsing.

Time for people to wake up but also time for people to ensure they are prepared.

http://www.foxhoundsecurity.co.nz