HB CDEM Group
Joint Committee
Friday 28
April 2023
Subject: Cyclone Gabrielle – Recovery update
Reason for Report
1. This paper provides the
Hawke’s Bay Civil Defense Emergency Management Group Joint Committee (the
Joint Committee) with an overall update on the recovery activities that are
underway following the commencement of the National Transitional Period on 3
March 2023.
Background
/Discussion
2. Cyclone Gabrielle severely
impacted the Hawke's Bay region from 12 February 2023. Hawke's Bay Regional
Council (HBRC) has assessed at several sites that this was the region's most
significant rainfall event ever recorded. There has been a tragic loss of 8
lives in the region.
3. The region's flood
infrastructure experienced significant damage including several stop-bank
breaches. Many people have lost homes, businesses, and livestock. Many rural
communities have been isolated as bridges were damaged or unpassable, slips blocked
roads, and floodwaters damaged infrastructure, including water supplies and
sewage. Power and communications were also down and still are not connected in
some areas.
4. As of 14 April 2023, more
than 1600 properties in Hawke's Bay have been assessed. 107 have been given red
placards, 210 yellow placards (access to parts of building only), and 909
yellow placards (temporary access only).
5. Wairoa District and several
rural communities were cut-off from supply routes and became isolated. Eskdale
and Dartmoor Valleys were severely flooded, displacing people and destroying
significant horticultural, viticultural, and agricultural production.
6. A range of communities
became isolated across the region, requiring supply drops for several weeks,
including Putorino, Waitaha Station, Tutira, Waikoau, Waihau, Puketitiri,
Patoka, Te Hāroto, Te Pōhue, Rissington, Kaiwaka. The Hastings and
Wairoa District Councils continue to provide essential fuel, water and food to
a small number of communities.
7. The National State of
Emergency over the Hawke’s Bay region ended on Tuesday 14 March 2023, 28
days after it was declared. A national transition period was announced,
allowing national-led support and resources to be coordinated and lasting until
1 June 2023.
8. On the 13th of March 2023,
Keriana Brooking was announced as interim Recovery Manager with the mandate to
stand up an entity to coordinate resources and planning regionally. Keriana
accepted the handover of the recovery from the HBCDEM Group Controller on the
14 March 2023.
Regional
Recovery work underway
9. Since mid-March 2023, the
Regional Recovery Agency (RRA) has focused on establishment activities and
early planning to undertake its recovery coordination and planning functions.
10. A key focus to date has
been to rapidly define the initial roles, functions, and resource needs of the
agency and to start early recovery planning.
11. Ensuring the infrastructure
is in place for RRA as we advance has also been a key focus. The RRA has
established premises at 100 Karamu Road, Hastings. Back-office support –
including provision of IT infrastructure for establishment is being worked
through with Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) but is not yet
finalised. Susie Young (HBRC) and Keriana Brooking are leading
conversations with DIA to ensure all risk and obligations are adequately
covered in agreement documents and funding prior to seeking approval from governance
parties.
12. Matariki has appointed the
Oversight Board. The Board consists of a Chair and five members. The first
Board workshop was held on Friday 21 April 2023.
13. The RRA has commenced
local-level recovery planning. Requesting short-term Locality Plans for the
Hastings, Napier, Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa areas (with a
region-wide environment and catchment plan from HBRC).
14. The RRA prepared guidance
and a template for these Locality Plans and have provided these to Locality
Plan leads. Regular engagement between RRA and the Locality Plan Leads
indicates that these Locality Plans are progressing well to date. Locality
Plans are due to the RRA by 28 April 2023.
15. A key role for the RRA will
be to coordinate and align regional recovery planning to support recovery
efforts and resources to be directed where needed. Recovery planning will be
undertaken at local levels (through Locality Plans) and at a regional level,
where RRA will develop Regional Recovery Plans for the region.
16. RRA has been designing the
process for developing the Hawke’s Bay Regional Recovery Plans. This
includes considering how Locality Plans will be fed into Regional Plans, how
consultation and engagement with communities and other interested parties will
occur, and how iterations will evolve and develop over time.
Next steps
17. The next key steps for the
RRA include seeking approval from the Matariki Governance Group (MGG) for the
terms of reference for the oversight board and discussion with the MGG regard
progress reporting on RRA establishment.
18. The overall recovery
structure includes ongoing reporting to the Joint Committee.
19. The key focus remains the
development of Delivery of a Regional Recovery Plan endorsed by the Oversight
Board, approved by Matariki and provided to the government by early June 2023.
Decision Making Process
20. Staff have assessed the
requirements of the Local Government Act 2002 in relation to this item and have
concluded that, as this report is for information only, the decision-making
provisions do not apply.
Recommendation
That
the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group Joint Committee
receives and notes the Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery update.
Authored by: Approved
by:
|
Keriana Brooking
Interim Recovery Manager
|
Doug Tate
HB CDEM Coordinating Executive Group Chair
|
Attachment/s
There are no attachments for this report.
HB CDEM Group
Joint Committee
Friday 28
April 2023
Subject: Cyclone Gabrielle –
Transitional update
Reason for Report
1. This paper provides the
Joint Committee with an overall update on the transitional period and
operational activities being undertaken by the Hawke’s Bay CDEM Group,
following the commencement of the National Transitional Period that commenced
on 3 March 2023.
Background
2. Across the Hawke’s
Bay region, multiple Local States of Emergency, a Hawke’s Bay-wide
Regional State of Emergency and then a National State of Emergency were
declared through the morning of 14 February 2023 as the devastation of Cyclone
Gabrielle bore down on the Hawke’s Bay Region and New Zealand.
3. Cyclone Gabrielle has had
significant impacts across six regions including Hawke’s Bay. The
National State of Emergency extended across Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay
of Plenty, Tararua, Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay regions. This is only
the third time a National Emergency has been declared.
4. The extent and impacts of
the event not just regionally, but nationally have been far reaching. The
impact on people, particularly those whanau who have lost loved ones, is
devastating. The impacts of this event will be multi-generational.
5. Again, the scale and scope
of this event should not be underestimated with the impact of the event being
far greater than Cyclone Bola in 1988 and greater in geographic scale than the
Christchurch earthquakes.
6. On 13 March 2023 a National
Transitional period began, marking the shift from the immediacy of response to
preparing for long term recovery planning. Transitional planning began before
13 March for Hawke’s Bay, with the Joint Committee at its meeting of
9 March 2023 receiving updates on the response, confirming the recovery
structure, and also appointing its Interim Recovery Manager.
7. In a separate report in
this agenda is an update from the Region’s Interim Recovery Manager.
While there is overlap, this report now focusses on work that has been underway
by the Group while in the transitional period and outlines in a public forum,
the proposed operational review that the Joint Committee has publicly committed
to.
Regional
Activities through the Transition Period
8. While the National
Transition period commenced 3 March 2023, the Group continued in the early
phases of the Transition period in a high level of operational response
support. This section of the report outlines the key regional activities that
have been occurring at Group during the Transitional period. The key activities
included:
Ensuring a robust handover from
response to recovery structures
9. Recovery planning was
initiated by the Group Controller early in the response by a dedicated team
working on ‘recovery in response’. This function’s goal was
to prepare the response for the transition to recovery, and to inform the
required scale of the initial recovery effort. This included recovery planning
resource from Christchurch that supported the wider regional recovery efforts.
10. The focus areas of the
early recovery planning were developing a holistic impacts and consequences
analysis of Cyclone Gabrielle, a transition to recovery report, both of which
were used in the standing up of the Regional Recovery Agency.
11. This early focus on
recovery-in-response helped support a robust handover of the response to
recovery, and ensured that in this transitional period, many activities have
been strongly connected into recovery structures locally.
Handover of isolated community
resupply to local councils
12. Due to the level of
central-government agency involvement, particularly the New Zealand Defence
Force, isolated communities have been supported directly from the GECC where
multi-agency working groups have worked on complex challenges. In particular,
the scale of isolated communities across the region required the establishment
of a Regional Distribution Centre highlighted in this report.
13. The systems and processes
of working with these communities are now stable and reduced to a point that
the handover of these activities back to the local level, where local councils
are working with the community through recovery is underway or has been
completed.
Demobilising and reconstitution of the
GECC, Regional Distribution Centre, and Bridge Pa Aerodrome
14. The response has had over
1000 people come through to work for the Group response. Most of these people
were deployed from outside of Hawke’s Bay and have received a thank you
letter signed by the Joint Committee and Coordinating Executive Group Chairs.
This support has been instrumental to coordinating the response and has been a
major enabler of the response within the Group Office.
15. Specific thanks must be
noted and given also to the many thousands of volunteers and organisations that
have supported the community through the response and transitional phases of
the event.
16. While there is often a
perception that Civil Defence is the agency that will come to the rescue in an
event, ultimately Civil Defence is the network of community working together -
whether that is a neighbour providing a hot meal or volunteer groups supporting
the cleanup. Regardless, thanks and recognition of the efforts and support that
still continues from many through the event must go out to all.
17. There is still further work
to do to reconstitute both the GECC, the Distribution Hub, and the Bridge Pa
Aerodrome sites to get these sites to high states of readiness in the case of
re-escalation. This remains a high area of focus for the Group as we plan for
the event of regional re-escalation.
Regional re-escalation planning
through winter and beyond
18. Undoubtedly, the region can
expect rain through the winter period with the potential for events that will
challenge communities and the region. Being prepared and ready for
re-escalation in the occurrence of another event that is not flooding is also
critical to sustain community confidence and resilience.
19. There will be a focus on
continued re-escalation planning over winter. This will involve a risk
assessment of communities throughout Hawke’s Bay to rain, and what a
response to localised and regional rainfall scenarios may look like.
20. This will need to be a
highly engaged, bottom-up planning process, with local level emergency planners
identified and engaged. This will also need to be an adaptable plan through the
recovery process and changing seasonal threat profile. Longer term, this
regional re-escalation planning over winter will inform future major weather
event response planning.
21. Fatigue remains a key risk
across the region not just for the Group but for all responders. This will be
an area that all communities will need to remain live to, in particular if a
major re-escalation occurs.
Business planning for the new normal
for the HB CDEM Group Office
22. An internal focus of the
Group Office will be to revise the Group Office work programme. Initial
planning confirms that efforts supporting the ongoing response and recovery
workstreams will have to continue. Examples of this include councils’
community engagement in recovery, reinforcing the emergency supply chain
management developed in response, supporting with ongoing welfare needs,
re-escalation planning and supporting the project management of the operational
review.
23. The existing capability
work programmes of Group already underway will also need to remain a focus,
with many of the actions that had commenced, critical to building long term
capability and resilience for the group. While a review of the response to
Cyclone Gabrielle may commence shortly, this does not mean that existing
identified improvements are paused until the review is completed. The
achievement of this will have to be relative however to the available budget
and resourcing of the Group, which may need to be revisited in order to see
improvements achieved in a timeframe that meets community and governance
expectation.
Maintaining the relationships built
during the response
24. Throughout the operational
response, relationships have been built and strengthened with suppliers,
response agencies, and Treaty partners. In order to maintain and embed these
operational relationships, a deliberate focus on engagement and relationship
management will be paramount.
25. Capturing these
relationships and learnings to ensure that they can continue to be grown and be
connected for future events is another priority.
Operational
Review from Cyclone Gabrielle
26. Capturing the experiences
of those involved with the response is an important part of continual
organisational learning. An operational review has been commissioned by the
Joint Committee who have publicly committed to their intent to see an
appropriately independent review occur. The statement relating to the review
can be found here.
27. Project Management support
has been procured with Simplexity to assist in the development of the review
project. While a public excluded item included in this agenda, the purpose of
the public excluded report, is to seek the Joint Committee members’ free
and frank views and to protect the privacy of persons on the draft terms of
reference and review framework. While Simplexity are providing technical
project management support for the review, at this time it is expected that the
delivery of the review will be by others and is ultimately being informed by
Joint Committee and Mana whenua partners.
28. It is acknowledged that
transparency and visibility is critical to the long-term success of the review.
Community can expect full visibility over both the full terms of reference and
review framework in the coming weeks once confirmed with Treaty Partners and
the Joint Committee. At this time Officers are working for a mid/late May
timeline for this to be completed. Ensuring that the scope is developed in a
coordinated and structured way, is critical for lessons learnt and outcomes
from the review to be sustainably implemented across local and regional
partners.
29. It is important to note
that while the review is regional in nature, there is an expectation that local
authorities, partners, and community organisations will conduct their own
reviews outright as part of being part of the Civil Defence Framework. This
includes all of the region’s five Councils, emergency services and
partner organisations.
30. The review is also
currently planned to be delivered over four phases with the proposed timeline
outlined below. The timeline of the review reflects the complex nature of the
event and the thousands of people involved directly in the Group response and
local responses. It also acknowledges the need to ensure that local findings
can be coordinated into the regional review also.
31. The draft timeline below,
sets out the four proposed phases, deliverable and the expected timeline for
these to be achieved.
|
Phase
|
Deliverables
|
Completed by
|
|
One
|
1. Independent review Terms of Reference approved by the Hawke’s
Bay CDEM Group Joint Committee.
2. Independent Review Framework.
3. Stakeholder Engagement Plan.
|
May 2023
|
|
Two
|
4. Review of Agency
Debriefs/ Review.
5. Development of a Hawke's
Bay-specific survey for Hawke’s Bay CDEM Group response to Cyclone
Gabrielle including tailored lines of enquiry for groups of stakeholders.
6. Execution of a Hawke's
Bay-specific survey to defined stakeholders involved in the Hawke’s Bay
CDEM Group response to Cyclone Gabrielle
7. Combined
analysis of feedback from the interviews and survey findings to capture early
thematic findings.
|
June 2023
|
|
Three
|
8. Key
stakeholder interviews within the Hawke's Bay CDEM Group, Iwi, partner
agencies; and other agencies and volunteer organisations that supported the
Cyclone response in the Hawke's Bay region.
9. Combined
analysis of feedback from the interviews and survey findings to capture broad
theme areas.
|
18
August 2023
|
|
Four
|
10. Development of an
Operational Review report.
|
30 September 2023
|
|
11. Brief CDEM Joint Committee on Operational Review
After-Action report findings.
|
November
2023
|
32. The Group Office will also
be involved in the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) National Review
Process as participants. NEMA are currently proposing to complete their own
operational review internally.
33. The regional review will
also need to support and complement any National Review that may occur. At this
time there is no confirmation of the scope or timing of any national review.
Next
Steps
34. The Group will continue to
deliver and focus on the key activities highlighted in this report. Substantially,
planning for any re-escalation and being prepared for any other major event
remains a key focus for the Group.
Decision
Making Process
35. Staff have assessed the
requirements of the Local Government Act 2002 in relation to this item and have
concluded that, as this report is for information only, the decision-making
provisions do not apply.
Recommendation
That the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence
Emergency Management Group Joint Committee receives and considers the Cyclone Gabrielle
Transitional Period update.
Authored by:
|
Edaan Lennan
Team Leader Emergency Management
Operational Readiness
|
|
Approved by:
|
Doug Tate
HB CDEM Coordinating Executive
Group Chair
|
|
Attachment/s
There are no attachments for this report
.
