John MacDonald: The cyclone review findings that astound me

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

I am astounded by what’s come out of this review into how well-prepared Civil Defence was prior to Cyclone Gabrielle and its immediate emergency response.

It wasn’t well prepared at all, it seems. And the worst-case scenario was not planned for.

How many years is it since the earthquakes in Canterbury? Thirteen years since February 22nd. Longer since the September quake.

And here we are in 2024, and Mike Bush —who led an independent review into the Civil Defence response to the cyclone in Hawke’s Bay— has found that the National Emergency Management System sets-up good people to fail.

You know that phrase: “When will we learn?” It seems we are incapable of that. Because, back in 2010 and 2011, the country had so many opportunities to learn.

Who knows how many academics and experts were poking their nose into Christchurch, wanting to interview people and find out their experience and their “learnings”.

After 2010 and 2011, it was going to be the big opportunity to make sure we set ourselves up to deal with major disasters and Canterbury was going to be the learning ground. But it seems we’ve learned nothing, because Mike Bush said as much yesterday.

Here’s another thing he said: “We see the critical lessons for the future that can be drawn from this event falling into two broad narratives.

“One should inform improvements at local and regional levels. The other speaks to the need for new investment in enhanced national coordination, assurance, consistency and depth of professional leadership in response to emergencies.”

Thirteen years on from the country’s biggest natural disaster and we’re being told that our national emergency management system isn’t up to it, it needs more investment to bring it up to scratch, and it sets people up to fail.

Astounding, don’t you think?

I had suspicions that we hadn’t learned a thing before all this came out, when I saw people after the cyclone saying they’d been let down by their insurance companies and EQC.

Now we’re hearing that the system designed to co-ordinate responses to national emergencies is a dud.

Funnily enough, I was going through Christchurch's CBD just the other day and I looked at all the building work still going on and I thought back to how people responded that day back in 2011. How Civil Defence and council people set themselves up in the art gallery building. And they were there for weeks.

How, in the chaos of the moment, they didn’t put themselves first. They put their city and its people first. And you would think, wouldn’t you, that if we were to get some good out of all that - it would be making sure that people all around the country who might find themselves in the same boat one day, didn’t have to pretty much start from scratch like our responders had to.

But no. Mike Bush has looked into it. And it seems we —as a country— are no better prepared for major disasters than we were thirteen and fourteen years ago, when disaster struck for those of us here in Canterbury.

And it astounds me.

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