Progress on preparedness up for review after floods

Emergency-management facilitators have been called on to give the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board a rundown on preparedness in local suburbs.

In 2020, the previous board voted $30,000 towards the cost of helping locals come up with tailored plans. So far, none have been presented to the board, although two of up to six initially envisaged for the board area have been completed. These cover Devonport and Sunnynook.

Board senior adviser Maureen Buchanan said in the wake of recent floods, it was timely to look at progress and review what community sessions to develop the plans had achieved. “Was it effective, did it help last month?”

Auckland North Community and Development (ANCAD), the capacity-building umbrella group tasked with helping communities develop plans, was due to give a progress report to a board workshop this week.

ANCAD, whose emergency management coordinator works just eight hours a week, convened a meeting last week to endeavour to kick along the Takapuna-Hauraki Response Group.

Attendance was limited, with the wider community only advised of the evening meeting on social media the day it was held.

A bigger public session, including a geotech briefing is to be held on 15 March at 10.30am in the Mary Thomas Centre in Takapuna.

Among those who attended last week’s meeting were current and former board members, and representatives from the Takapuna Residents’ Association (TRA) and several churches. TRA chair Stephen Salt said he, like many others, was unclear how emergency-management structures worked. He was concerned that residents were being asked to do too much of the planning.

Under changed civil-defence delivery structures, council group Auckland Emergency Management (AEM) devolves a lot of planning to communities. It has said people should be prepared to cope alone for several days.

AEM’s response and communications to recent extreme weather events is now under council review.

Local board member Mel Powell said AEM had been “nowhere to be seen” when Sunnynook was flooded.

Former board member and Devonport resident Trish Deans, who worked on the 24-page area 24-page, acknowledged it took a lot of time. She suggested it could become the peninsula plan, taking in Bayswater and Belmont.

Deans told the Flagstaff, the Devonport group was working on a flyer to let residents know about the plan. More briefing should occur in the next few weeks.

The detailed plan is on the ANCAD website.