A new 24/7 center for live monitoring, alerting and reporting of unfolding national emergencies will give New Zealand a significant time advantage in the face of a crisis and remove the significant workload of emergency management on-call services.
New emergency management minister Kieran McAnulty, who has held the portfolio for two weeks after the prime minister reshuffled the cabinet, opened the MAR center at the National Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Wellington on Tuesday afternoon.
The center was established after a ministerial assessment revealed vulnerabilities in Aotearoa’s response to natural disasters and other emergencies, including the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake and the 2017 Port Hills fire.
“I think people will be genuinely surprised to learn that a center like this hasn’t been established before,” McAnulty said during a stand-up on Tuesday afternoon.
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Previously, the management of emergency response personnel was scheduled all day and had a second standby duty for night/weekend shifts, meaning they would have to get up, possibly in the middle of the night, to respond to a major national emergency.
KEVIN STENT/Things
Employees work at the National Emergency Management Agency’s new Monitoring Alerting and Reporting (MAR) Center (MAR). Pictured: SEA Watch Officer Matthew Smith.
McAnulty said Aotearoa was well served by its dedicated emergency response personnel, but there was an inherent delay with the paging system. “They have to gather their belongings, send a notification and go to the center. That delay has now been removed.”
The well-being of the staff was also an important factor in the decision to open the center. Emergency services personnel worked in a stressful environment, juggling family and personal obligations in addition to sacrificing on-call time. “It’s a lot to ask of a small team.”
McAnulty denied that there was a shortage of staff for emergency management, despite an ongoing skilled labor crisis that affected many other workers.
KEVIN STENT/Things
Matthew Smith and Sarah Godber pictured at work at NEMA’s headquarters in Wellington.
All but one of the candidates for the new center were outside recruits, McAnulty said, meaning the experience within the agency had not been rearranged.
Staff at the new center would continuously monitor for hazards and, in the event of an emergency, quickly and accurately warn the government and Kiwis about what was happening and what to do. The new center would also help regional civil protection groups, local councils and emergency first responders.
Civil Defense Director Gary Knowles said the center would help the country better deal with the more frequent climate change-related extreme weather events, tsunamis and flooding.
McAnulty thanked Knowles and other emergency personnel for completing the center a few years ahead of schedule and on budget.
The center was part of a wider government plan to strengthen the country’s emergency management system.