Hard News: What Now?
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Robert Urquhart, in reply to
If the buildings were that unstable as to be “unsafe” for limited access how come a 4.8 aftershock only brought down one chimney
I’d also note that the article doesn’t say where most of these reports of damage came from. Not from inside the cordon I’d wager.
So it might have something to do with all the aftershocks we’ve already had at the rate of several a day, mostly 3- 4.3’s but ranging up to 4.6.
They’ve reached the point where “everything likely to fall down, has. We can let people in now”.
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I’m just as pissed off about the lack of physical inspection of the eastern suburbs though.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
National Civil Defence controller had not even seen the Eastern Suburbs almost two weeks after the event.
And why, pray tell, should he have? His job is in Wellington, controlling the response. If he cannot trust the decisions of those on the ground that's a problem, but it doesn't mean he should be in there with his sleeves rolled up.
Much as I consider Key to be a complete lightweight, I don't expect him to be in up to his elbows on every detail. He's the top manager, which if he's any good at it means he trusts that others will do their jobs so that he can focus on the strategic view. It's the same for the National CD Controller.Going back to CIMS, again, since it's the model in play here, it's fairly unusual for the Incident Controller to have seen first-hand what's going on with any given operational aspect of the incident. They're very unlikely to have been to the end of the hose that's in the deepest part of the fire, or to the body of the aircraft that's crashed, or to the fence of the property containing the armed nutter. That's not their job, or their place. Their place is the Incident Control Point, and their job is to take the detailed reports from others and create a strategic plan that is then parcelled out to subordinates to implement.
I want senior emergency managers managing, not getting bogged down in small-picture detail. That's not what they're paid for.
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Something needs to be done today.
At Waltham Park, Carol McCance was among residents critical of the 10-minute inspections Earthquake Commission officials were making of houses.
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Brownlee on Radio NZ right now (link available later): just told Kathryn Ryan that the "we" who make the decisions about which buildings go or stay are all those who have agreed with him. When pressed over whether that meant him or government being the decision-maker then, said the question was unfair.
He also has a really good understanding of heritage architecture restoration because he was the head of the Riccarton Bush trust when they grappled with that. Makes some sense amidst the clangers.
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Brownlee still seems to be in MINE MINE MINE mode. I really can't see the problem with waiting to demolish while allowing business owners in to see if they can get things out safely. Radio report this morning. Massage parlour girls makeup beats a ground floor full of vintage cars and another of NZ antiques. Hmmm...
Seems like this worked out OK in Napier
Administration
The Napier Borough Council relinquished control under the Municipal Corporations Act 1920, and the Government appointed two Commissioners to oversee and manage the town and its reconstruction, with the Napier Reconstruction Committee. They were John Saxon Barton, a solicitor and Lachlan Bain Campbell, an engineer.Reconstruction Finance
An Earthquake Relief Fund was opened by the Prime Minister and eventually reached $800,000. A Government Grant of $20,000 built Tin Town. $3,000,000 was given by the Government in the form of loans.The Associated Architects
The four architectural practises in Napier in 1931 banded together to share facilities and bring a unity of purpose to the task of rebuilding the town, working in shifts around the clock. But they continued (except in rare cases) to design the buildings individually. These firms were:E A Williams, who favored the Art Deco style.
Finch & Westerholm, which designed mainly in the Spanish Mission style.
J A Louis Hay, who usually designed buildings inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and occasionally Louis Sullivan.
Natusch & Sons, whose work tended to reflect the growing modern movement.
Other architects who worked in Napier in the 1930s were J T Watson who arrived in 1934 and become Borough Architect, and architects from other cities, chiefly Wellington, who were retained by banks, insurance companies and hotel chains to design their buildings throughout New Zealand.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
And why, pray tell, should he have?
Shush. Shall we just assume he's Darth Brownlee's padiwan-learner and leave it at that?
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Herald offers obligingly misleading headline - "No desire to bulldoze Christchurch - Brownlee".
Story doesn't have the best quotes form the Radio NZ interview, sadly, but you get a taste of his thinking here.
Mr Brownlee said he believed the focus that was being placed on heritage buildings when thousands of people's lives had been disrupted by the earthquake was "undue and unacceptable".
The debate around their preservation was "premature" he said.
For many buildings that had previously had protection orders on them, that protection was somewhat irrelevant, Mr Brownlee said, because the prospect of either getting them up to a code where they would be safe to re-enter was "simply not realistic".
But not premature to knock em down, of course. So 'realistic'.
The heritage advocate they had on the RNZ interview (didn't catch her name) pointed out that international standard practise is for assessment teams of heritage experts as well as CD engineers to review damaged buildings. Why not pay for/ask for an influx of those experts like we've done with everything else?
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
And why, pray tell, should he have? His job is in Wellington,
His "Job" is in Christchurch, his office may be in Wellington but when communications are disrupted he should be close to the emergency, within radio range. We have seen plenty of people turn up in Christchurch including John Key. Are you suggesting we didn't need the Prime Minister there?.
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It is the job of leaders to ensure they have access to adequate information for monitoring and adjusting their team's performance. Obviously tough in a crisis but you can't just rely on what senior managers are telliing you. Neither do you have to spend lots of your time at the coalface.
What I would expect is a focus on having the right systems and processes in place, including those for allocating resources fairly. Still no straight answers about how that was done, even though otherwise there's widespread praise for the job done.
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Raymond A Francis, in reply to
Well Steve I am fairly sure someone here was calling for John Key to stay away
Was it you? -
Sacha, in reply to
The heritage advocate they had on the RNZ interview (didn't catch her name)
Site text updated, no audio yet. It was Anna Crighton, Chairperson of the Canterbury Earthquake Heritage Building Trust Board.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Mr Brownlee said he believed the focus that was being placed on heritage buildings when thousands of people’s lives had been disrupted by the earthquake was “undue and unacceptable”.
I really don't think the focus is on heritage buildings and for Gerry Brownlee to say otherwise is disingenuous at least. It is not an either or situation, like the USAR removing bodies from the rubble in the central city is not a reason why CD was not looking after the welfare of the people of the Eastern Suburbs. I call bullshit. The word "Agenda" comes to mind.
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And I hope the people calling for the retention of heritage building remember the call to save quite munted building after the first quake, those would have certainly fallen in the second, possible with loss of life
Quite a number of these heritage buildings are really faux gothic, cute, meaningful to Chch people but no great loss
Lets start again and do a Napier (where I was when the quake to place incidentally) or failing that some more green spaces till we make up our minds on what is needed -
Matthew Poole, in reply to
communications are disrupted he should be close to the emergency, within radio range
Satellite phones and HF radio cover pretty much the entire globe, entirely independently of land-based infrastructure. He can be wherever he happens to be and still be in contact. He does not need to be in Christchurch, or even in New Zealand. One of my volunteer roles is establishing international communications links in an emergency, so don't try and tell me he has to be in Christchurch to know what's going on.
His job is in Wellington, where he's got ready access to all the best advisers MCDEM has at its fingertips. His immediate subordinates may well benefit from being in Christchurch, certainly for the Intelligence and Logistics functions, but there is no need for the guy at the top to be anywhere other than the national Emergency Operations Centre.
We have seen plenty of people turn up in Christchurch including John Key. Are you suggesting we didn’t need the Prime Minister there?
The PM's not there as a manager, he's there as a politician. He's there to lend symbolic moral support to the citizens and the rescue/recovery effort. If he was there to gather intel, he did a pretty shit job if he managed not to visit the worst-hit suburbs until after there'd been an uproar about how neglected they were.
And the moral support aside, no, I don't think we do need him there, for the same reason I don't see any real need for John Hamilton to show his face in Christchurch. -
Matthew Poole, in reply to
you can’t just rely on what senior managers are telliing you
And if you cannot possibly verify everything they tell you for yourself, at some point you have to trust them and their judgement. That's why they're senior managers. Hamilton cannot feasibly visit even a fraction of the affected area for enough time to get a good feel for what's going on, so he has no choice but to put his faith in his senior managers' judgement.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
He can be wherever he happens to be and still be in contact. He does not need to be in Christchurch, or even in New Zealand.
So, he might as well be at John Key's place in Hawaii then?. Gimme a break, what about the " symbolic moral support to the citizens and the rescue/recovery effort." coming from a man who could actually organise a response?
His job is in Wellington, where he’s got ready access to all the best advisers MCDEM has at its fingertips.
Sigh, so he has to be "on the ground" for advice but not for leadership?.
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Radio NZ audio posted: Gerry Brownlee (streaming, 14 mins) and Anna Crighton (streaming, 10 mins)
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Sacha, in reply to
Sounds like part of the challenge with the portaloos is involvement of more than one organisation in the process. What was in place for Hamilton to trust and verifiy their performance?
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
What was in place for Hamilton to trust and verifiy their performance?
Why Hamilton? Why not a subordinate? That's getting into detail that would be outside his ordinary purview until it became a significant problem.
I think we can all agree that the way the needs of residents has been handled is a cluster, but blaming that on Hamilton not having been trotting all over Christchurch loses sight of his role.
In the grand scheme of things, this is like laying directly at Paul Reynolds' feet the lax security around the Telecom customer database. It's a big problem, but not directly his concern. Do you blame him for that? No, didn't think so. -
Matthew Poole, in reply to
So, he might as well be at John Key’s place in Hawaii then?. Gimme a break, what about the ” symbolic moral support to the citizens and the rescue/recovery effort.” coming from a man who could actually organise a response?
Who would recognise him if he was to walk up and knock on the door? Key is a nationally-recognisable figure with a nationally-recognisable role. You're busy chastising Hamilton for what he hasn't done when you obviously don't actually know what he's meant to do, and that you even know his name puts you one up on a lot of people.
And yes, he could've been in Hawaii and it still wouldn't have made a difference to his ability to communicate.You were the one who said he had to be in Christchurch. I said he had to be in Wellington to counter your assertion. Ultimately it doesn't matter where he is from a communications perspective, but the national EOC is not in Christchurch. The MCDEM bureaucracy is not in Christchurch. The political leadership to whom he answers are not, by and large, in Christchurch.
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Oh look, Key says there's nothing to see here. Best move along.
Prime Minister John Key says a report from Civil Defence about the distribution of port-a-loos and chemical toilets in quake-stricken Christchurch shows allocation has been nothing but fair.
There have been complaints from residents in the hard-hit eastern suburbs that there is not a port-a-loo in sight.
Key said he has asked Civil Defence about the distribution process and where the toilets been sent.
He said there aren't enough port-a-loos or chemical toilets for the scale of the event but that is quickly being rectified and the need for toilets is being re-assessed all the time.
A shortage of port-a-loos and chemical toilets was the top concern expressed by residents at community meetings in the eastern suburbs yesterday.
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Sacha, in reply to
blaming that on Hamilton not having been trotting all over Christchurch loses sight of his role
Have already agreed with you. On-the-ground visits are a proxy for what seems to have been lacking - unless Key releases his report to prove otherwise.
That's getting into detail that would be outside his ordinary purview until it became a significant problem.
And waiting for media to raise the issue is one way of monitoring cross-agency performance.
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Classic letter to the editor from the Press today (h/t Peter McLennan).
Many citizens have criticised Gerry Brownlee’s stance on demolishing heritage buildings. This is unfair. Gerry knows about building construction – he was a high-school woodwork teacher before entering politics.
In these dark times we need decisive leaders that do not overthink the issues and waste time reading technical reports and listening to the advice of experts. In a hundred years, people will still be talking about Gerry.
Richard Stevens – Fendalton
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
He said there aren’t enough port-a-loos or chemical toilets for the scale of the event but that is quickly being rectified and the need for toilets is being re-assessed all the time.
A shortage of port-a-loos and chemical toilets was the top concern expressed by residents at community meetings in the eastern suburbs yesterday.
One of the lessons from this event will be around logistics of temporary services replacement, clearly. Assuming that "The squeaky wheel" was the allocation modality used for sending out the limited stocks of port-a-loos, it's obviously a system that fails. Unfortunately these lessons are generally learned the hard way, since planning exercises never quite manage to get inside the heads of people who've really been affected by a real disaster.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Classic letter to the editor from the Press today
I suspect my sarc-o-meter is broken. I cannot tell if the author is serious.
Possibly the worse prospect is that I can see a non-parallel reality where he is serious, and I don't think I'm being silly for thinking it :s
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