Lack Of Water An Emergency Issue

A series of emergency management meetings in the Manawatu Whanganui region have highlighted that the lack of an adequate water supply is an issue for Tararua in times of crisis.

The monthly meetings are held at ‘executive’ level across the region and involve all sector groups associated with civil defence – Ministries of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, Health, the New Zealand Fire Service, Horizons Regional Council and local territorial authorities.

A survey undertaken last year has indicated that 54% of people in Tararua did not have adequate water to be self sufficient in an emergency situation, District Resilience Manager Paddy Driver said.

With the area being subject to earthquakes, floods and even volcanic fall out, the water supply is high risk and people needed to have a store of water they could rely on. The bursts of high volumes of rainfall this summer have, on occasions discoloured the water. Having your own home supplies can be quite helpful during such events.

“There is nothing more certain that when a major event happens most people will be on their own for a number of days.

“This is because the initial focus of emergency services will be working out where the problems are and saving lives.”

The minimum water supply per person is three litres per day.

In other areas of Emergency Management, communications along the Tararua coastline have been tested recently in preparation for ‘Eastern Oil’ – a major civil defence practise in April on how to respond to an ocean oil slick on the east coast.

Such practises were a good opportunity to test systems and iron out problems, Mr Driver said.
Meanwhile in a ‘major project for the country’, a new central map based system for recording events is being tested. “This is something that people assume is already in place but they forget NZ does not have the billions of dollars to invest in developing software that the big international software companies have.”