11th Annual Emergency Management Conference

About
Agenda
Masterclasses
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About

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The 11^th Annual Emergency Management Conference held on the 28^th and 29^th of February was a poignant event. The first day of the 2011 conference coincided with the deadly earthquake that struck Christchurch on the 22^nd of February and the events of that day were fresh in the minds of many of our attendees.

The 2012 event provided the opportunity for over 200 people in the sector to come together, reflect, share stories and key lessons from that day. Some selected highlights from the event were:

Hearing from Hon Chris Tremain, Minister of Civil Defence
Getting the local perspective at a moving address from Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker
Getting the national view from John Hamilton, Director of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management
A session on community-based resilience from Sam Johnson of the Student Volunteer Army

The dates of the 2013 conference have been confirmed as the 18^th-19^th February at Te Papa in Wellington. If you are interested in taking part in or exhibiting at the 2013 conference, please contact us today!

Headlines from the event

Emergency workers praised over quake effort - stuff.co.nz
Parker on Wellington: 'I'm scared to be here' - stuff.co.nz
State control of rebuild scary, says mayor - NZ Herald
People should feel safe when in the Capital - NZ City
Officials hampered quake volunteer efforts - 3News


Clive Manley Auckland Council	Hon. Chris Tremain Minister of Civil Defence	Dave Brundson NEL Coordinator	John Hamilton Ministry of Civil Defence	Bob Parker Mayor of Christchurch

Spotlight on Christchurch

The 11^th Annual Emergency Management Conference will once again put the spotlight on Christchurch. The sessions will explore lessons that have been identified not only from a local level, but also at a National level.

Lessons identified

Hear about inter-agency issues and lessons that have been identified
Community resilience
Managing public expectations
Managing the media
Communication in Crisis
Invaluable take home lessons for those communities not directly affected by Christchurch

Agenda

Agenda: Day 1

8:30am

Registration and coffee

9:00am

Opening remarks from the Chair

Clive Manley, Head of Auckland Council Civil Defence

9:10am

Ministerial Address: The Canterbury earthquakes (Ministerial Address)

The February 2011 earthquake has proven again the crucial importance of preparedness. The Minister of Civil Defence will deliver a Ministerial Address and touch on the following issues:
• Lessons identified
• The government’s role in response and recovery
• What are the challenges in the near future for emergency management in New Zealand?

Honourable Chris Tremain, Minister of Civil Defence

9:45am

Keynote Address: The response – a local perspective (Keynote)

This session will focus on Christchurch City Council’s internal viewpoint of the emergency response to the February 2011 earthquake.
• How effectual was this response?
• Key lessons identified
• Local coordination issues
• Community resilience
• Information management
• Where to from here for Christchurch?

Mayor Bob Parker, Christchurch

10:40am

Morning Tea

11:00

Buildings and earthquakes

Understanding how buildings behave during an earthquake in different regions has now become crucial information that we all need to understand. This information explains why there is more damage to certain buildings. This session will focus not only on how buildings behave but also how New Zealand infrastructure behaved in the Christchurch setting.
• Is our building code the right one for our country?
• What is realistic for New Zealand to do to prepare itself for future events?
• Future building (code) requirements to suit New Zealand emergency management preparedness measures

Richard Sharpe, Technical Director; Earthquake Engineering, Beca

12:00pm

Keynote Address: The response – a national perspective (Keynote)

The National Controller will discuss the co-ordination of the national response to the Canterbury earthquakes. This session will take a look at the learnings from Canterbury which has provided invaluable input into the management of future events.
• Managing a succinct national coordinated response
• Communicating across agencies for effective response
• Key lessons identified

John Hamilton, Director, Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management

12:50pm

Lunch

1:50pm

Managing welfare and social services support at local level

Effective management, coordination and delivery of emergency welfare is a crucial part of emergency response and recovery; and one of the biggest challenges for Local Government in looking after its community. How can this outcome be achieved at local level?
• How can we marry existing social services support and networks with CDEM?
• How can emergency welfare support transition from response to recovery more quickly and efficiently?
• Is CDEM Welfare enough or is community social services support much wider than this?
• Does it matter if you are a big council or a small one?

Sandra James, Community Team Leader, Waimakariri District Council

2:40pm

Panel discussion from the impacted area: Inter-agency coordination (Panel)

• There were many issues identified that stemmed from inter-agency coordination. What are these issues and what actions will be taken to enhance greater collaboration between the different groups? This session will focus on the different agencies involved and their viewpoint during the Christchurch response.
• Inter-agency training and practice for greater cohesion
• Information management
• Engagement with partner agencies for key relationship building
• Communicating with the public
• Embedding national & group plans into local practice

Dave Cliff, Assistant Commissioner South, New Zealand Police
Spiro Anastasiou, Strategic Communications Manager, Ministry of Health
Lincoln Papali’i, Senior Community Development Manager, Christchurch City Council
Jane Lodge, Welfare & Recovery Manager, Auckland City Council
Jim Stuart Black, National Manager Special Operations, New Zealand Fire Service
Murray Sinclair, Manager, Civil Defence and Emergency Management

3:40pm

Facilitated Q & A with the inter-agency panel

4:00pm

Afternoon Tea

4:20pm

A future look at Auckland City Council’s emergency planning

So many lessons identified in such a short space of time have also allowed Auckland City Council to take on board important knowledge. Although Auckland does not face the same threat as Wellington does with an occurrence of future earthquakes, the size of the population does pose significant challenges when responding to an emergency. This session will focus on Auckland City Council’s emergency management planning that has taken place post Christchurch.

Clive Manley, Head of Auckland Council Civil Defence

5:00pm

Google Crisis Response

Anthony will share the Google.org experience during the Christchurch earthquake and how they are looking to continue to make critical information more accessible around natural disasters and humanitarian crises.
• What we do during a crisis, such as the Christchurch earthquake.
• How we can help you
• How you can help us help you

Anthony Baxter, Software Engineer, Google.Org Crisis Response

Agenda: Day 2

9:00am

Welcome back from the Chair

Clive Manley, Head of Auckland Council Civil Defence

9:05am

Understanding the Christchurch response - Communicating hazards and risks

What happened in February 22 2011? This session will focus on the science behind the devastation. The fault that led to the earthquake and what damage has occurred since the major one in February.
• Why was there so much damage to the Canterbury region?
• Liquefaction and the behaviour of buildings and infrastructure
• The continuing aftershocks: their frequency and strength
• Understanding the probability of the risks occurring

Kelvin Berryman, Manager: Natural Hazards Research Platform, GNS Science

10:00am

Christchurch earthquake – a utility perspective

• How did the regional and national lifeline utilities cope with the February quake?
• What was the extent of the network impacts?
• How quickly were they up and running again?
• What were the key interdependencies between utilities?
• Case study examples of the benefits of prior mitigation work
• Which elements of utility response plans proved to be of the greatest value to them?

Dave Brundson, National Engineering Lifelines Coordinator

10:50am

Morning Tea

11:10am

Communicating with and managing the media

After the February earthquake Christchurch had a large contingency of both national and international media arrive. This was partly to do with the amount of international people missing. A week after the quake there were more than 1000 accredited media personnel in the Christchurch region. Understanding that the media is also an important stakeholder that needs to be managed is key to communicating out to the public. This session will provide you with an understanding from the media’s point of view regarding what they want to know and how they will then communicate this information publicly. This session will also provide you with practical advice about how to manage the media in a crisis.
• Assessing what information should be provided and how to communicate this to the media
• Meeting the needs of different media groups
• Managing the government’s media messages
• Issues that were identified from the Canterbury disaster

Meaghan Miller, Communications Manager, Queenstown Lakes District Council

12:00pm

Community resilience spotlighted - Community resilience spotlighted: The strength of the Student Army

There were many communities in the Canterbury region doing their best to make a difference to their communities immediately following the February earthquake. This showed the strength, initiative and resilience that New Zealand communities have within them. This session will focus on how the student army was instrumental in getting their community up and running again.
• How did this volunteer movement start?
• The work the students undertook
• The use of Twitter – and its reach in the initial stages of response and recovery
• The impact of Facebook on the response effort

Sam Johnson, Student; University of Canterbury

12:45pm

Lunch

1:40pm

Lyttelton’s community response

Canterbury communities have proven what communities working together can achieve. Volunteers can and did provide invaluable assistance during the crisis in Christchurch. It is however important that there is coordination in the effort so that manpower and different skill sets can be taken advantage of. How can this be harnessed to produce an even more effective response directly following an emergency?
• Lyttelton’s grassroots response
• Taking community resilience seriously
• Who should be responsible for coordinating the volunteer groups?
• The importance of coordinating the volunteers for greater effectiveness
• The balance between the role of the council and community resilience
• Lessons taken from Canterbury

Hon Ruth Dyson, MP, Port Hills
Wendy Everingham, Treasurer, Project Lyttelton

2:20pm

Pre-emergency planning and preparedness - the role spatial data plays in post disaster recovery

The Canterbury earthquake highlighted the need for response organisations to have clear plans in place for effective emergency management. This session will look at how response organisations can ensure maximum readiness and how immediate access to the right tools and data post event allows for proactive rather than reactive response.
• Emergency Services Mapping and Location Data
• Pre-arranged programmes and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with geospatial data and solutions providers that are triggered in the event of an emergency
• Coordinated national service and supply contracts

Mike Donald, Managing Director, Terralink International

2:45pm

Afternoon Tea

3:05pm

Public engagement for thorough emergency preparedness

The community response from different suburbs in Christchurch has been extraordinary but much of this, as with any grassroots movement, was organised and delivered without any pre-planning or formal preparedness. The impact that a community could have during the response of an emergency could be immense if there was sufficient planning with the public prior to an event.
• Building a community network for future events
• Incorporating the public when preparing for crisis
• Best scenario communication tools for public awareness

Jason Dawson, General Manager - Customer Relationships, Hamilton City Council

3:40pm

Closing Keynote: Inspirational community involvement (Keynote)

Sir Peter Leitch, the Mad Butcher, is a true entrepreneur with an incredible spirit of giving back to the community. He has been on the ground in support of Christchurch following the earthquakes. He flew Emergency Services workers out of Christchurch to watch a league game in Auckland to give them a bit of a break. He has been part of the Rise Up Christchurch Telethon Appeal. He connects with people and embodies the spirit of community resilience. Listen to this closing inspirational keynote and take home with you an understanding of what you can do in your community to make a difference.

Sir Peter Leitch, The Mad Butcher

4:30pm

Closing remarks from the Chair and end of conference

Clive Manley, Head of Auckland Council Civil Defence

Masterclasses

1. Preconference Masterclass

Monday 27th February, 9.00am – 12.30pm

The ‘how to’ of social media in emergency management response

During the emergency management response phase we have all seen how effective social media can be as a tool, to not only communicate information out to communities but also to gather information and use this information to respond accordingly. But are you maximising this medium? Do you really understand how this can really aid your response effort? This half day Masterclass will provide you with the know-how necessary when the next crisis occurs.

Getting to grips with Twitter and Facebook
What should you be using these tools for?
How do you influence chatter?
What are the tools for emergency management to understand “chatter”

Natalie Sisson, Social Media Specialist

Natalie Sisson is a passionate Integrated Marketer with over 10 years of corporate experience in marketing, communications, brand and product management for some major companies in New Zealand, England and Canada across the widest variety of industries. Natalie is a lover and early adopter of online tools with a 5+ year addiction to social media. Natalie also offers social media personal training, a Social Media Club and Social Media for Business Workshops around the world.

2. Preconference Masterclass

Monday 27th February, 1.30pm – 5.00pm

Media training for clear, concise messages during crisis

In a crisis you may need to respond to the media and provide information in a short space of time. Reacting to unexpected inquiries without perhaps understanding the ramifications of your information may impact on your organisation negatively. This Masterclass will provide you with the important knowledge that you need to respond in a pressured environment to communicate out to the public.

Managing an unexpected enquiry
What the media needs during a crisis
How to manage a flood of enquiries
How to write a brief news release
Why it pays to engage, rather than avoid the media
How to deal with misreporting
How to prepare for an interview
How to control an interview
How to answer questions when you don’t have the answer
Your rights
How to complain
Live role play (on-camera with volunteers)

Greg Ward, Communication Specialist

Greg is New Zealand’s communications specialist. He’s an international broadcaster (BBC radio and TV) with expertise in media training. A former senior journalist and newsreader with TVNZ and Radio New Zealand, Greg is now recognised as this country’s leading media coach. He trains executives, newsmakers and presenters throughout New Zealand and Australia. The training focuses on media management, interview skills and crisis management. Greg has been the BBC’s correspondent for nearly 20 years, and frequently appears live on BBC radio and TV as a reporter and news commentator. Greg’s recent World Service reporting included live coverage of the Pike River mining disaster and the aftermath of the two Canterbury earthquakes.

3. Post-conference Masterclass

Thursday 1st March, 9.00am – 5.00pm

Situational awareness – Making good decisions in times of emergency

Making good decisions in an emergency requires more than timely and accurate information. It requires decision-makers to be able to analyse a range of information from many sources, interpret the information and understand its potential effects on the operation they are managing. When it has been reviewed, information must then be circulated between all agencies involved in the operation so that everybody is working from common understandings and assumptions regarding the unfolding situation when planning activities. In emergency management this shared set of knowledge is known as a Common Operating Picture.

Being ‘situationally aware’ is about contributing to the development of the “Common Operating Picture” and being fully aware of all aspects of the operation as the situation develops. This means that event developments can be accurately forecast, requests for information can be quickly answered and that all agencies involved in the operation are working towards shared objectives.

Modern technology has increased both the amount of information that can be gathered and the speed at which it can be analysed. This means that emergency managers need to be challenging current practices and looking for new ways to collect intelligence and manage information.

Perception of environmental elements
Hone your ability to; collect the correct information; analyse it; and project what will happen next
Learn what the appropriate actions should be taken
Strategies for identifying key information

Karen Stephens, Director, Kestrel Group

Karen’s 15 years in the crisis management, business continuity and emergency management field has taken her around the world, managing assignments in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. She developed her expertise in these areas as a senior consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, delivering assignments to major clients, developing business continuity and crisis management methodologies, and training other consultants at a number of the international PricewaterhouseCoopers offices.

As a Director of Kestrel Group, Karen works with large government agencies through to small not for profit organisations as well as corporates, including Fonterra and Telecom.