Gavin Treadgold

Manukau City Council required an independent appraisal of the council's current civil defence and emergency management (CDEM) position in relation to systems, processes, structures and responsibilities. The purpose of the appraisal was to determine the capacity and capability of the organisation to be prepared for, respond to and recover from an event that would result in the activation of CDEM processes.

This project was commissioned by the Auckland Region CDEM Group to provide an assessment of its current emergency management capacity and capability (readiness and response). The assessment is derived from an independently developed rating methodology which examines the collective operational readiness of the CDEM Group partners (emergency services, local authorities and lifeline utilities) to prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters.

Abstract

Sahana is Sinhalese for "relief". Sahana rose from the waves of the Boxing Day tsunami in Sri Lanka as a free and open source software (FOSS) solution for managing information before, during, and after a disaster. Commercial disaster management systems are often unsustainable for all but the wealthiest of countries - Sahana was created as a system that can be deployed in a sustainable fashion in any country on the bare minimum of computer hardware and communications. Many of the benefits provided by FOSS contribute directly to sustainability of this solution - increased flexibility, ease of customisation, deployment not restricted by licence agreements, and skills required to support Sahana can increasingly be found in local communities.

Kestrel Group has been working on the recovery arrangements for the Auckland region CDEM Group for just over three years. They include development and adoption of the Recovery Organisation, Roles and Functions Standard Operating Procedure, formalisation of recovery workgroups, which will spring into action after an emergency event, and organising the Auckland Recovery Managers Forum for professional development of, and networking for, the region’s Recovery Managers. Ongoing work will be based around firming-up the structure/process developed to date.

The rapid growth of the Internet and World Wide Web has spawned the creation of new and potentially useful software applications that may provide benefits to emergency managers. One of these applications that is currently drawing attention is the wiki.

Kestrel Group was engaged to develop a community response plan for emergencies occurring in the Marsden Point Area; an area unique due to the industrial and natural hazards that it is vulnerable to. Plan development involved identifying management structures, incident facilities and levels of emergency response.

Kestrel contact for this project is Dave Brunsdon.