The West Coast Emergency Management Group has had a funding boost of $140,000 from the Government to help the region’s communities and households prepare for disaster.
The strategy will aim to lift the region’s overall capacity to recover from major events such as earthquakes.
The web tool will enable people to calculate the supplies they would need in such events, based on the numbers in their household.
Emergency management group chairman and Westland Mayor Bruce Smith said the committee was excited about the funding.
“We applied for the money at the suggestion of (Civil Defence) Minister Kiri Allan, after we talked to her about what would happen when the Alpine Fault goes.
“We have plenty of helicopters and excavators on the Coast, but fuel would be the issue. We could be stranded with no way in or out of the region for a week, and we need emergency fuel storage depots in Westport and Greymouth.”
The second issue was communications, because phone and cellphone networks would go down, Mr Smith said.
“The police and truckies have CB radio but that depends on repeaters — they tend to be on mountains and in an earthquake they can be taken out.”
Schools in South Westland had satellite phones funded by the community but coverage could be patchy at times.
“We need as many options as possible, and the minister advised us to apply for funds to come up with the business case for the resources we need,” Mr Smith said.
Scientists have recently updated their forecast for the Alpine Fault, warning there was a 75% chance it would rupture within the coming decades in a magnitude 7 or 8 quake.
When the fault went, the shaking would go on for several minutes and the earth’s crust would move metres in seconds, potentially blocking roads to the coast for many days.
“Every household on the West Coast should be thinking about their emergency supply kit, if they haven’t already got one,” Mr Smith said.
The web tool to calculate exactly what a household would need would be ready by May 2022 but people could start putting a kit together now, Mr Smith said.
“Even if you just start building it up gradually, you could be glad of it sooner than you might think — the fault could go in 20 years or it could go this afternoon.”
- Local Democracy Reporter Lois Williams
