Whakaki Resilience Group
To Respond, Recover, Review and Be Ready
To be ready to take appropriate action in the event of a major emergency that impacts on our Whakaki community in an organised and managed way to ensure that whanau are safe and cared for until external help arrive.
In early 2023, the Whakaki community received a 20 foot shipping container from Te Whare Maire o Tapuwae – Whanau Ora Wairoa – one of several across the Wairoa District. The container held 3 days of basic emergency supplies and equipment for 30 people that could be used in the event of a civil emergency. As an evacuation site on Hereheretau Station had already been identified and agreed some years earlier, our container was offloaded alongside the farms shearers quarters.
Within days of receipt of the container, on 14 February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle hit the Hawkes Bay causing major destruction and disrupting communications, power and road access to Wairoa and the surrounding district.
The foresight of Te Whare Maire o Tapuwae in supplying the emergency containers to Wairoa communities is to be commended as these provided basic essential supplies for the initial hours when we were totally cut off from the outside world, wondering what to do and how to organise ourselves.
We were fortunate, however, to have a Civil Defence hub 10 kms to the east at the Nuhaka Fire Station and once we had decided to set up our hub at the Whakaki Marae, we were able to liaise with them and take a lead from their response in their Nuhaka community.
As a result of that experience, the Whakaki Resilience Group (WRG) was established. Our response post Cyclone Gabrielle gives a good insight into a small rural community that successfully looked after its own during a major civil emergency.
Our experience reflects the impact on many rural New Zealand communities when disaster strikes. In Hawkes Bay, the Civil Emergency response for Wairoa was woeful and outlying rural communities like Whakaki were left to fend for themselves as the focus of attention was on the most devastated and populated areas.
Immediately following Cyclone Gabrielle, the WRG team built more shelving into the container, stocking it with supplies that remained after the cyclone to ensure that we are ready to care for our Whakaki community for up to a month when the next emergency event happens.
The WRG is also looking to acquire and fit out a second container to hold additional supplies at an alternate safe location such as the former Whakaki School in case we cannot get to Hereheretau Station, some 6kms inland from Whakaki.
We would strongly recommend that all rural communities have access to an emergency container that has supplies and equipment sufficient to support their numbers when disaster strikes.