Training exercise becomes reality

A TRAINING exercise on disaster management turned into the real thing for Manawatu District’s Principal Rural Fire Officer, Tony Groome, during a recent visit to the Solomon Islands.

Two days into the week-long exercise in the country’s capital, Honiara, Mr Groome and three other members of New Zealand Red Cross’ IT and Telecommunications Emergency Response Unit assisted the Solomon Islands Red Cross in an emergency response capacity after days of heavy rain caused flooding that killed 12 people and left another 10,000 villagers homeless.

“One moment we were helping the Solomon Islands Red Cross run disaster management training, and the next, assisting them in disaster response,” he said. “We were the only outside agency involved and just happened to be there at the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ time, depending on how you looked at it.”

Mr Groome said the New Zealand unit, with expertise in telecommunications and IT, arrived in the Solomon Islands in torrential rain (courtesy of the monsoon season) and by the following afternoon had received indications of flooding on the western extremities of Guadalcanal.

“By the Tuesday it had turned into a full-on disaster,” he said, “with low-lying plains to the east of the main island also suffering flash flooding that swept away villages, access roads and the islanders’ main livelihood, their vegetable gardens.”

Although Mr Groome spent most of his time in the Solomon Islands Red Cross headquarters in Honiara, he did undertake a trip around the “Weather Coast” in a 15ft open boat, dropping off assessment teams, setting up portable communication posts and collecting up-to-date information.

He said the Solomon Islanders handling the response were “pretty experienced” and knew exactly what they were doing and what needed to be done.

Apart from helping with incoming assessment information, the New Zealand Red Cross ERU members also provided the locals with modern communication equipment such as portable phones, repeaters and radios and GPS (Global Positioning System).
Mr Groome said his involvement in emergency management in Manawatu - through rural fire work and search and rescue – had allowed the skills he learnt over the past 10 to 15 years to “kick in” as the disaster escalated.

“It certainly proved a great experience and it was good to be at the pointy end of what we have been training for all this time.”

He did not expect to be involved with a disaster right from the beginning, “but it was great to be up there at that time and to help those people – and that’s what we are all in this for, at the end of the day”.