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Auckland floods inquest: Fire and Emergency reveal 'overwhelming' situation faced behind the scenes

Four men were killed during the Auckland Anniversary floods. Photo: Supplied Fire and Emergency has revealed the "overwhelming situation" it faced behind the scenes during the Auckland Anniversary floods as the inquest into 2023's deadly storms continue. The hearings started in June and were examining the public warnings issued during Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary floods. Nineteen people were killed from the storms nationwide, including three men who died in the months following the weather events. Daniel Miller, 34 , Daniel Newth, 25, David Lennard, 78, and Dave Young, 58, were all killed duirng the Auckland Anniversary floods. Fire and Emergency NZ's national communications centre manager Gavin Travers gave evidence on Tuesday about the challenges FENZ had with communication and responding to call outs. He said the volume of 111 calls the fire service received during the January 27 floods was very large, totalling in 4945. Flooding in Auckland's New Lynn on the evening of January 27, 2023. Photo: RNZ/ Josie Campbell "It is a significantly high number of incidents for a localised event, absolutely. "I can tell you that the weekly incident report that goes out to our leadership team would see national numbers be around 1500, 1600," Travers said. He realised emergency services were dealing with an unprecedented situation by about 7pm that day. "As I said, I think, you know, by seven o'clock, it was pretty obvious to me, but by five o'clock, when we put the call out to the media team to distribute that messaging, that was in response to the significant number of calls that we were getting. "For example, there was water running over the backyard, which they, I call it, might not necessarily see or had seen before and perhaps it's worth recognising that in today's environment with technology, we will sometimes get a 111 call from three different people in the same address, all trying to get through to emergency services first, which has the opposite effect in terms of demand." Flooding on Candia Rd in Henderson Valley, west Auckland. Photo: Supplied Travers said it was the first time in his career he'd made a decision to ask people not to call 111 unless there were threats to life. He said it was also uncommon that every fire truck in Auckland had been dispatched. "I don't recall that happening since about February 2018, when we had a previous significant weather event." In a situation where all crews had been deployed, priority was always given to calls where there was a risk to life, Travers said. "So if it's a potential life risk, then they will take a resource off another call and send it to the life risk. The Auckland Domain the morning after January 27, 2023. Photo: Robert Smith "If we've got a fire engine going to a flooding call, maybe water's going through somebody's house, and as upsetting as that can be, if there's no life risk there but we have one waiting, we'll definitely go to a life risk first." Travers said 14 people were working as call takers across the country's call centres, which was more than usual. FENZ Region Manager for Te Ihu, Brad Mosby also gave evidence to the Coroner about his experience when he was a district manager based in Counties Manukau. He said it would have been beneficial in his opinion, to have declared a state of emergency earlier in the day. "In my professional view it would have been really useful to have had a declaration early it would have sent good message to the community that we have a significant event here and that our partner agencies are working together. "Some of the the stuff that wasn't being coordinated very well was the evacuation centres, we were really impressing on our colleagues in council and Auckland Emergency Management that we needed emergency centres, we had no where to send them." Flood relief in a South Auckland hall in the days following the event. Photo: RNZ/Angus Dreaver Mosby said he was particularly concerned about the Elton John concert at Mt Smart Stadium which was set to go ahead that day and said an Electronic Mobile Alert or EMA, could have been sent earlier. He said he raised it in internal meetings ahead of the concert that day. "We had 30,000 people coming into Auckland and anyone with a device in the zone of the EMA response would have picked up that we have a serious weather event here, with some good messaging about keeping away. "The reason I brought it up was because I thought it was a real risk." The Auckland phase of the inquest into the deaths of those who lost their lives during the two devastating and deadly storms of 2023 continues. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.