Otago Regional Council chief executive Peter Bodeker made those points in a report prepared for a regional council meeting this morning.
In its ''first major test'' since Emergency Management Otago was recently established, the response both at a territorial and group level to the flood was ''very pleasing'', Mr Bodeker said.
Territorial activities were co-ordinated by the Regional Co-ordination Centre, which was co-located with the Dunedin City Council in the DCC Civil Defence bunker.
Staff from the regional council and associated services, such as Ambulance, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Police and the New Zealand Army, were being ''well-co-ordinated and effective'', he believed.
Both the regional council response to the flood and the Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM) response had highlighted the need for more ''trained and ready staff'' for such events.
Some key staff , both management and governance, had been away from Dunedin, and other staff had had to ''step up to the mark''.
The result was ''good'', but resources were ''stretched'', both at the regional council and Civil Defence level.
The council's resourcing review and long-term planning would ''need to recognise the importance'' of having staff who were aware of and trained to help in responding to both a regional council flood, and in a Civil Defence emergency response, he said.
Mr Bodeker added yesterday that he was not suggesting that extra staff be added to the CDEM organisation.
But more work needed to be done to enable regional council staff who usually worked in other roles, such as in information technology, to help with other duties within the council, or with wider emergency management, if needed.
It was intended to complete the resourcing review by the end of the year.
Last December, Mr Bodeker warned that a bigger group of trained volunteers might be needed in Dunedin in future to help deal with the aftermath of big earthquakes, including tsunami threats.
Those comments were made in the aftermath of the magnitude-7.8 Kaikoura earthquake, that occurred shortly after midnight on November 14.
