Ministry funding to boost Hawke’s Bay’s resilience

Hawke’s Bay’s resilience and planning for natural hazards was given a boost today thanks to $420,000 in Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management funding.

Minister for Civil Defence Kris Faafoi announced three Resilience Fund grants for Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group and East Coast Life at the Boundary (LAB), to support projects designed to keep people and communities safer.

Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group Manager Ian Macdonald said the projects were part of the group’s ongoing efforts to increase Hawke’s Bay’s resilience to natural hazards, particularly local-source tsunami – a significant risk to the region.

“We’ve only recently come to realise how significant the tsunami risk is to Hawke’s Bay and the North Island’s east coast, and we’ve been working with our local community and other civil defence emergency management groups to fully understand the implications for our region and the rest of New Zealand,” Mr Macdonald said. 

“This funding will allow us to continue to better identify and understand these and other risks, and to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.”

The funding will support three projects: 

• Year two of the Hikurangi Response Plan, a three-year project led by East Coast LAB that will outline how agencies will respond to a Hikurangi subduction zone earthquake and tsunami, and how to enhance civil defence emergency management planning for such an event.

• ‘Te ara o Tawhaki – A pathway to resilience indicators’, a kaupapa Māori initiative that will use the New Zealand resilience index, previous research and pūrākau (traditional Māori stories) as a framework for understanding and engaging with communities, and measuring changes to their resilience.

• ‘Know your zone’, a pilot public education campaign designed to promote awareness of tsunami evacuation zones in Hawke’s Bay.

Mr Macdonald said the projects would support communities to prepare for and respond to natural hazards.

“As one of New Zealand’s most at-risk regions, it is vital our communities can adapt to and recover from events in a short amount of time, and as agencies, we are prepared.

“To do this, it is equally important we continue to build our resilience and planning before, during and after disasters, to help to keep people and communities safer,” he said.

Mr Macdonald said although the projects were being driven by civil defence emergency management groups, people still needed to make sure they understood the risks they face and take steps to prepare themselves.

“I encourage everyone to make a plan with whanau and friends, check their tsunami evacuation zones, and practice their drop cover hold and tsunami hīkoi (walk).

“We are all responsible for ourselves and our families – we are all part of Civil Defence in New Zealand.”

For more information on Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, visit www.hbemergency.govt.nz or follow Hawke’s Bay Emergency on Facebook.

For more information on how to prepare for an earthquake or tsunami, visit www.happens.nz

East Coast LAB (Life at the Boundary) is a collaborative programme that brings together scientists, emergency managers and other experts from across the East Coast to makes it easy and exciting to learn more about natural hazards and how they affect us. For more information on East Coast LAB, visit www.eastcoastlab.org.nz

28 February 2019

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