Emergency resilience fund ‘completely over subscribed’

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

A West Coast request for resilience funding from the national emergency agency has been partly rejected due to a lack of money.

About $500,000 was funded from a $1.4 million request, a meeting of the West Coast Emergency Management Joint Committee heard on November 8.

The application was made to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) resilience fund, which is targeted towards civil emergency welfare measures.

Committee members heard the national fund was oversubscribed by more than $4m due to the volume of applications.

The West Coast application was to install shipping containers to hold welfare supplies at five key locations across the region, to be utilised in a major Alpine Fault earthquake (AF8) catastrophe.

The South Island is predicted to be overdue for a magnitude 8-plus quake by about 30 years.

Given the West Coast's high vulnerability to a major earthquake, its region's scattered communities have been told to expect to be self sufficient for days, if not weeks, in a major disaster.

There was to be one resilience container each for Buller, Grey and Westland and the two marae.

The scope of the container contents was based on what other regions had in their welfare containers "without overpitching it".

West Coast Emergency Management Joint Committee chairperson Jamie Cleine said it was important for the region reapply.

He noted the key role of the region's two marae at Arahura and Bruce Bay, which needed to be emergency response centres in an emergency.

In the meantime the councils had pitched in some of their own resources to help move the project forward, Cleine said.

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae chairperson Francois Tumahai said the Arahura Marae was designated as an emergency activation centre.

"It seems a bit strange we're not kitted up for it. As you know, with the Kaikōura (earthquake) event, the marae were the first to kick in.

"I think it's a no-brainer to be honest."

Brown said they have been bidding to the long-term plan budget planning of the region's three territorial authorities and the West Coast Regional Council.

They were proposing an increased budget to focus on the welfare and planning aspects of emergency management regionally. They were also seeking more finance to upgrade the website, and for training.