Poor use of resources by some authorities! Then there are the Scum!

Kia Ora,

Had to change the subject of todays post because some people are not dealing with reality. Much of that is actually Civil defence who are not getting the information out or channeling people who want to help. If you want to help you just have to go do things yourself.

Having worked both in Civil Defence & a military CP I know how it should work & how it is obviously not working.

The Student army are on the march again to the eastern suburbs to clear liquifaction. I was going to after writing this head that way myself but will be doing something else.

Then of course there are the scum elements!

We are continuing to get hit with on going aftershocks(3 whilst writing this, in fact at times the ground doesn't seem to stop moving at all) some quite substantial & I know from time on the cordon that everytime there is another shock more parts fall off highly damaged buildings.

But many people are still trying to carry on with life as if it is normal. Even straight after the quake whilst on the cordon we were turning away people who were trying to go to normal work.

There is nothing normal about what is going on. Out this side of town we are just getting the shocks with things falling down or did on the big shock but overall not badly off. Running water, power obviously internet but like the rest of the city we can't flush our toilets as the pipes between us & the sewerage works are broken.

Now right there is the big issue with Civil Defence. They came on saying don't flush toilets then the Canterbury Chief medical officer came on say flush sparingly. A mate & I debated this a little as even in this situation where in most things Civil Defence have the power & the lead, I am still certain on medical areas the Chief medical officer is the top person. He would be the person Civil Defence would go too. But when you went on the site for Ecan who control civil defence in Canterbury you actually found at that time both sets of advice. Creates confusion.

I spoke yesterday of frustrated & angry people showing up at the cordons wanting to help but not been used.

Well talking to a mate today as they prepare to leave town(just so many are) he was with that group of people trying to help. He tells me about 50 Fletchers engineers showed up with all their gears saying they could help. But were turned away. My mate is ex military as was another guy & two serving people showed in uniform & again turned away. At that stage they were saying three dead but one person arriving from the city centre said they had just passed 20 bodies making their way there.

This was a real issue when I was part of Civil Defence. The people at the very top were really good mainly being ex military but under that it was a mess. We had an exercise where in the debrief we raised a few issues.

First was to not in a paper exercise to over allocate resources but do it realistically. It was pointed out that they may have to make a decision to focus on those with the best chance leaving others to possibly die. The reponse to that one was "we save everyone" & it seems they are still working in that mode. It is not a bloody exercise & all the mistakes should of been sorted especially after the September quake. They obviously haven't been & it is causing frustration & anger.

Other issue was not knowing their local area & who provided the service to certain areas but just using the yellow pages to provide services they were not able too.

That is why I was impressed with Inspector Dave Lawry last night. He had to make the hard but at that time necessary decision to focus resources on where they thought there was a greater likelyhood of life. When pressed though he said 100% sure no one alive. You can never be 100% sure but it was a hard realistic decision.

I am also hearing of people who immediately post the quake thinking it was just another real good aftershock standing in the most vulnerable parts of a building going "that was a good one".

Many others are just heading off to work as I said above. As someone said after the September earthquake the person they were going to help shift that day rang to find out where they were since they had to be shifted to the new property since Sky were coming at 4pm to connect them. What planet were they on?

But then it is the same we have seen with the rush on fuel & supplies. It seemed many people believed that comment by one 'expert' that there would not be another big quake for 50 to a 500 years. Thing is we know for instance that we are well overdue for a big shake on the Alpine Fault & that has not happened yet. There should not of been a panic this time to get supplies. But no change. Under prepared then trying to catch up.

It is an issue that I have talked about before where here in New Zealand these days we tend to deal with things that are extreme by not dealing with them. If we don't talk about it it won't happen. Well it bloody does & it is not about doom & gloom, it is about been ready & able to carryon if something does happen.

As I have said often with investing things going wrong is seen as an opportunity. But it can be an opportunity to do good & make a difference. Then you get the others who see it as an opportunity to show they are scum. A family waiting to see if their mother & sister can be rescued from a collapsed building had their house burglared. Six were arrested inside the cordons on the first day.

Even foreign media were arrested last night trying to 'break in' to the Christchurch Hospital to interview victims.

So the fact scum are using this to benefit from this instead of going to help digging liquifaction out I am going to use my pushbike to carryout security patrols of areas until I get a call to help in some other security tasks. That has just changed a mate is going to assist using his WW2 jeep.

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