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Guardian
Ashburton
www.guardianONLINE.co.nz
Thursday, June 20, 2013
FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
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Well prepared for big fall By Sue Newman Heavy road clearing machinery has been moved into strategic points around the Ashburton District in anticipation of a significant overnight snowfall. The Ashburton District Council’s emergency manage-
ment officer Don Geddes and key emergency services personnel met yesterday to put in place a plan that should ease the district through any big snow aftermath. Unlike the snow of 2006, the warnings were out early, Mr Geddes said and that meant good plans could be put in place
for dealing with whatever the district awoke to today. “We’ll have lots of information posted on our website and we’ve liaised with all emergency services to identify any entrances they’ll want cleared and we’ve already put machinery out at key locations.” If the snow predictions eventu-
ated, road clearing would start well before daylight as it was far easier to keep roads snow free than it was to begin a massive clearing job after the snow had fallen, Mr Geddes said. The council’s emergency services team will review its plan early tomorrow morning and would continue to liaise with
welfare groups, the rural support trust and emergency services, he said. “Last time the warnings came late, at 11pm; this time they’ve started early. “There are lots of lessons learned from last time.” Most of the council’s water supplies now had back up
generators available to ensure continuity of supply. Montalto, however did not and if power was lost to that supply, residents would have to boil their water before drinking, Mr Geddes said. It had started snowing in Methven last night by 9pm, and it was settling on the ground.
Power network ‘much more robust’ By Sue Newman The snow storm of 2006 set EA Networks lines programme back about 18 months but it has resulted in a much more robust network says the company’s chief executive Gordon Guthrie. In the following years the company replaced thousands of old wooden power poles, undergrounded significant stretches of power lines and today is well prepared if the predicted big snow arrives. Yesterday key staff met and prepared a strategy that it could activate this morning; Mr Guthrie described this as being in a ‘state of readiness’ that would ensure everyone involved knew what was expected. “Our network is a quantum shift stronger now than it was then. We’re making safe but we’ll be prepared at first light to do what is needed. You achieve
nothing by having crews out in the dark,” he said. While the network was robust, Mr Guthrie said the Carew substation could be a concern in heavy snow. It is undergoing maintenance and the flow-on effect from this could be that an outage caused by something like a fallen tree, would put more customers off than it normally would. While there was an element of panic shopping in Ashburton yesterday as people stocked up on what they saw as essentials, that preparedness was good from an emergency services perspective as it would mean more people were able to cope with a disruption to normal services, he said. “Like any service that will be involved, our biggest initial issue will revolve around making sure we can get our staff here. We’re confident we know our processes now and we’ll be watching to see what eventuates.”
Four Mid Canterbury schools have decided to close today, while the rest of the district is holding off to see what the weather brings. Yesterday afternoon, Mount Hutt College, Methven Primary, Our Lady of the Snows and Lauriston School said they would not open today after assessing snow forecasts throughout the week. It came after three of the schools’ principals met with the Methven Area Bus Group, who provide transport for more than 450 pupils. The transport company and principals decided they would not risk running buses on what could be treacherous roads. Mount Hutt College principal John Schreurs said the three principals then asked their own board chairpersons if they would consider closing the schools. Lauriston School principal Dianne Prendergast was not part of the meeting, but later confirmed they would close as well with the Methven Area Bus Group cancelling its runs. All principals said they would wait until later today to make a decision about closures tomor-
row. Mr Schreurs said it was about “risk management”, and cancelling the bus would have forced some parents to drive their children to school if it was open “The advice is for people to stay off the roads. “The runs for the buses go down some narrow roads and we understand there is going to be freezing down to 250 metres which would make the roads treacherous,” Mr Schreurs said. Methven Primary principal Chris Murphy said it was a ”nightmare” for schools to close during the school day, and yesterday’s decision allowed them to contact parents early. If there was no settled snow in the morning, he said there was a risk it could settle during the school day and disrupt transport services. Meanwhile, Mayfield and Mt Somers-Springburn Schools said they would make a decision on closures early this morning. Pearsons Coachlines manager Mark Cook said the company took pupils to seven schools in the district, and would be “looking out the window at 5.30am (today) to make a decision”. He said parents would be informed of closures over the radio and by their schools.
It might have been early morning, but when a big snow is predicted, 8.30am is supermarket rush hour.
Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 190613-TM-01
Some supplies in short supply By Sue Newman Bread was the most popular commodity in town yesterday and supermarkets the hottest destination. Burned by the big snow of June 2006, Ashburton people were not leaving anything to chance in case today dawned white and silent. They were stocking up on food ahead of the predicted big snowfall. When supermarkets opened their doors people were waiting and within minutes checkout operators were looking at long queues. And in almost every shopping trolley the bulk of items were the same – bread, milk, tinned goods; in many
there were also boxes of beer and bottles of wine. Couplands had sold out of bread by mid-morning, but for some supermarkets the rush started early – by mid afternoon Tuesday bread shelves were empty. And that took New World owner Tony Sheppard by surprise. “As soon as there’s any hint of snow now this happens. We’d been planning for a big rush today (Wednesday) but we got caught out a bit with people stocking up on Tuesday,” he said. To cope with the anticipated rush Mr Sheppard had called in all available staff and had brought forward bread orders to cope with the stockpiling by
customers. Early morning he was out on the floor doing double duty as a packer in an effort to clear customers through the checkouts. The stock situation wasn’t helped by trucks having been delayed further south by flooded roads, he said. And with the most popular commodity, bread, suppliers and in-house bakeries were all limited by the volume they could put through their ovens. “Bread can’t just be made in five minutes,” Mr Sheppard said. As stocks of bread and milk dwindled, some food stores had introduced a limit on the number of items customers could buy. For some, the early morning
shop turned into their weekly grocery shop plus extras but for many, with the memories of 2006 still fresh in their minds, it was an extra visit to stock up on anything they thought might tide them through if the snow came. Vicky Jones was on her second round of grocery shopping at 8.30am. “My boot is full of bread. I live in town but I’ve come back to get things for a friend who lives out at Mt Somers,” she said. Most trolleys contained multiple loaves. Another shopper had a simple trolley – bread, milk, beer and wine. “If we get snowed in I’ll need that,” she said.
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Woman posted wrong medical records By Laura Mills
Four schools make early call to close By Myles Hume
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The West Coast District Health Board has apologised after it posted two pages of a woman’s private medical records to the wrong person. The papers were mistakenly sent to Ashburton woman Jen Branje, who was living in Westport when she had surgery at Grey Base Hospital last year. She lodged an ACC claim, and asked the hospital to post her records to back up her complaint. They arrived in the mail, but were accompanied by two additional pages belonging to a different Westport woman with a completely different name and NHI patient number. “I could understand it if they hit the wrong computer button,” she said yesterday. However, the information she received was in paper copy. Ms Branje started trying to contact the other woman, and also phoned the Privacy Commissioner, who told her the files should be immediately returned to the hospital, their contents must not be disclosed and she must not contact the other woman. She was told it was up to Greymouth Hospital, not her, to disclose the breach. Unfazed by that, Ms Branje instead made renewed efforts to find the Westport woman, as she felt she had a right to know her privacy had been breached. Ms Branje said she was concerned the hospital slip-up could be covered up if it relied on the ‘victim’; who may not even know what had happened; to complain. West Coast DHB health programme director Michael Frampton said it appeared that two pages containing information about another patient had been “mis-filed” into Mrs Branje’s hard-copy file. “Yesterday morning a representative from the West Coast DHB rang the patient, whose records were incorrectly sent, informed her of the breach and apologised on behalf of the DHB. We also apologise to Ms Branje for any inconvenience this has caused her.” Privacy Commissioner spokeswoman Annabel Fordham said in this instance, the right agency to notify the affected woman was the DHB. “We strongly encourage people who receive information in error to return it to the proper agency, or as an alternative, to pass it to the Privacy Commissioner.” Mr Frampton said no staff member had been disciplined, and all those concerned had contributed to the review of procedures. - APNZ
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