Civil Defence Exercise To Build on Recent Experience

Hawke’s Bay’s Civil Defence Emergency Management organisations have had experience with a number of emergencies this year – including Police actions, storms and tsunami alerts.

However the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group wants to learn more through a region-wide “Exercise BayVac” on Friday 13 November.

The hypothetical BayVac scenario is a prolonged heavy rain storm occurring over Hawke’s Bay resulting in flooding, plus strong gales affecting parts of the region.

“The threat of flooding from heavy rainfall in Hawke’s Bay is a realistic scenario, so it’s an exercise which will have a practical benefit to the organisations that respond to these events in our region,” said Nigel Simpson, Group Co-ordinator for the HB Civil Defence Emergency Management Group.

Taking part in the exercise are Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Wairoa District Council, Napier City Council, Hastings District Council, Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, NZ Fire Service, NZ Police, St John Ambulance, Hawke’s Bay District Health Board Public Health Unit, and Ministry of Social Development, plus members of the Hawke’s Bay Engineering Lifelines Group, Welfare Advisory Group and the National Crisis Management Centre in Wellington.

The exercise will further enhance the working relationships between these organisations and clarify roles and responsibilities in the response to a region-wide emergency. It will test inter-agency communication, public information and each organisation’s response procedures.

“There are always lessons to be learned through both exercises and real events – however the value of exercises is that staff involved can slow things down to get processes right and cement their knowledge,” said Nigel.

The date of the event hasn’t escaped him – he is hoping that Friday the thirteenth doesn’t bring a real event like the recent tsunami response that replaced a marine oil spill exercise which was planned for the same day.