Leadership lacking yet again!

Kia Ora,

As I said in my last post some people don't think I should be criticizing people around the earthquake response right now.

But it needs to be now because there are so many instances where poor leadership or organization is showing along with the lack of flexibility.

I highlighted the lack of leadership in the aftermath of the September earthquake where everyone spent all the time patting themselves on the back & learnt no lessons.

I was incredulous to hear the head of Civil Defence say that Sunday March 6th would be the first time he had been in the Eastern Suburbs since the 22nd February earthquake. Poor leadership too busy looking for the media soundbites is what one person called what has been going on.

One of the positions I held during my military career was regimental signaller(infantry battalion signals platoon) so spent times in a command post, company commanders signaller, step up & finally the commanding officers signaller.

At all levels from company up it is the lower level commanders who fought the battle whilst the commander above was in behind the scenes looking at it from the bigger picture & to exploit opportunities. A great strength of Rommel.

In this situation in Christchurch the head of Civil Defence should of been out on the ground seeing what the real damage was from the start or shortly after recce teams had reported in. It was six days after that Civil defence showed up to get on the ground information from the intrepid Bernie(& got an earful from me as well). There seemed to be no real idea of what the situation was on the ground. That has continued as decisions made do not reflect local issues.

The Mayor very aware of the lack of reaction to the situation in the suburbs on September the 4th 2010 said they had to start getting out there quite early. Problem was that was not happening in reality.

An issue that has arisen is the TV & use of the internet. Now obviously right from the start I have had power, water & the internet so all the information passed over on TV or the internet is good. It just hasn't been getting to the places out east where it is needed or targeted at.

When I accompanied Bernie on Friday I think it was(you lose track of the days), was able to pass on the information of a meeting Sunday at Cuthberts Green for those in the suburbs we were working in mainly that day. The timing given was 10am & no one had heard about this meeting. On Saturday when checking for any update to get my vehicle out of cordon noticed the time for that meeting had changed to 6pm on the website. Today it went ahead at 10am as it seems finally someone realized that people in that area had no power so could not access(if they already did as this is an area that is likely to have low access to the internet in the first place) the internet, TV & in many cases now radio as batteries go flat. Not to mention listening to the radio as I type this it keeps cutting out.

I understand from what I did get from the radio that frustration at those meetings was high.

It all looks good on the internet & on TV but the areas worst affected outside the CBD just are not getting the information.

Today it is even worse in regards to the CBD. The cordons are been reduced but there is so much confusion over the information & still how to access areas within the red zone is not sorted out. A lot of that could be sorted simply with some leadership. Yes your business, vehicle etc are OK. Be at this point at this time & you will be escorted into retrieve this. You will have this amount of time.

For Christchurch to recover needs cash flow & businesses working again. At the present time it is all been hindered. Another issue with this is local businesses are missing out as the bigger companies instead of using the locals in a subcontract role are bringing in their own people from outside the district. It is putting extra pressure on the infrastructure but again is also lessening the local cash flow so hampering any recovery. Less work for locals then more frustration & anger therefore more crime.

The different parts need to stop giving out conflicting information & start showing some leadership. With all the conflicting information & lack of information it is the police & military that are having to deal with the frustration at ground level.

http://www.foxhoundsecurity.co.nz