Floodwaters during Cyclone Gabrielle left grass stuck in the Tīnui substation fence. Photo: RNZ/ Phil Pennington
An independent report has found a lack of coordination during Cyclone Gabrielle led to tension between Wairarapa's three councils.
The review, which was requested by Masterton (MDC), Carterton (CDC) and South Wairarapa (SWDC) district councils, covered three main areas: political oversight and accountability, how organisations involved in emergency management responded, and what impact that had on the community.
It found emergency services and local authorities were all individually monitoring the situation as it developed, with the initial MetService warnings issued a week in advance. However, the report said a region-wide response centre was not activated until the day the cyclone struck, which meant response efforts were not coordinated or delivered as early as they could have been.
"Multiple agencies and emergency services were pre-positioning their own people based on their own knowledge of previous events of a similar nature," the report said.
"Interviews with staff from all three Wairarapa councils and the emergency services indicated that there was no central coordinating authority."
That was despite an agreed concept of operations between the three local councils and Greater Wellington Regional Council in case of such an emergency, it said.
The review found that when a joint emergency operation centre was eventually activated, it was announced by a Masterton incident controller who had not consulted their Carterton or South Wairarapa counterparts.
"This caused tensions between the councils … the fact they were already managing impacts in their own areas with their own staff when the activation decision was made meant they effectively had to hand over responsibility for managing the event to the Wairarapa [Emergency Operations Centre] and send their staff to Masterton to resource it.
"Two things made CDC and SWDC reluctant to do so. The first was MDC's heavy focus on Tīnui and neighbouring communities which, while important, distracted it [from]other impacts in other parts of the Wairarapa.
"The second was the absence of a Wairarapa-wide intelligence collection plan and impact assessment to inform the EOC's operational response."
Better awareness of the whole situation only began emerging when information was shared by staff from agencies like police and Fire and Emergency - who had their own radio networks and could communicate with communities that were cut off or without power.
The regional response to the cyclone improved as the week progressed, the report said.
"Situational awareness and response asset tasking improved, tensions were worked through and impacted communities got the support they needed.
"Once community emergency hubs and alternate communication methods were established, things did work better."
CDC chief executive Geoff Hamilton said he was proud of staff at the three councils, but there were key learnings to take away from the event.
"It's crucial we take onboard the findings of the report and implement them across Wairarapa in order to be better prepared for future emergency events," he said.
"Wairarapa has limited resources during emergencies and a coordinated effort is key to the success of our response, resilience and recovery across our region."