The chair of Auckland Council's Civil Defence and Emergency Management committee is blaming "staff turnover" and COVID-19 for the poor response to severe flooding earlier in 2023, which has been laid bare in a new review.
It comes as a flood-affected resident says she's fed up with the lack of leadership from Auckland Council.
Those affected felt the key people in charge had downplayed the disaster and the scathing review of their response, released on Wednesday, confirmed this.
The review identified failures in the system for emergency responses that had been known about since 2016 but hadn't been fixed.
Auckland Council Civil Defence and Emergency Management (AEM) committee chair Sharon Stewart, who was flustered during her interview with AM on Thursday where she spent much of the time sifting through papers, said she accepted the team dropped the ball on the night of the flooding.
But she then shifted the blame to Auckland Council's chief executive.
"I think the responsibility really has to go back to the CEO - he's responsible for all the expectations of the event," said Stewart, a councillor for Auckland's Howick ward.
"Elected members, we're not operational so we were really needing to hear from them."
Stewart first heard about the flooding on the night via social media, she said.
Asked by AM host Melissa Chan-Green if the committee should've been better prepared so she wasn't hearing about such events through social media in the first instance, Stewart pointed to employees leaving the council.
"To be perfectly honest, we've had… a lot of staff turnover and it's been very, very difficult and then of course we had COVID.," Stewart said.
Earlier, red-stickered Parnell resident Luci Harrison told AM the lack of information during the event was terrifying and there hasn't been clear communication since.
"There was nothing available for us at all," she told Chan-Green.
"You didn't know who to call… what to do and it was terrifying."
She said Auckland Council's communication remained "appalling" in the aftermath.
"We've sent emails… and there's just been no support or clear communication or empathy or sympathy or leadership to this date, and it's two and a half months later."
Harrison said the council needed to show some leadership and compassion towards red-stickered homeowners.
Those homeowners were supposed to receive rates relief as a result of their properties being uninhabitable, but Harrison said no progress has been made.
"We've applied for the rate relief… and no one's heard a thing from it so it's a joke," she said.
"There's still no leadership, there's still no direction, there's still no sympathy. Even if the council came forward to us and said, 'Look, we're struggling, we haven't got the systems in place, we're going to put them in place' … at least [then] there's some sort of system where you know something's going to happen but, at the moment, it's a constant battle to try and find out where to go, what to do, what funding is available."
Harrison believed there were people in "huge financial difficulty" as a result.
Auckland councillor Richard Hills told AM the council needed to front up to its actions.
"There wasn't enough communication or any communication in some cases, the coordination wasn't good enough, there was lots going on in the background but the public wasn't seeing what was expected; us to be leading and us to be showing what we're doing in such a catastrophic event," he said, appearing alongside Harrison.
"The report is not glowing on anyone so I think it's up to all of us to take responsibility going forward about how to make this better; how to be ready for this scale and magnitude which, unfortunately, with climate change, we will see more of."
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown on Wednesday admitted "I dropped the ball" on the night of the flooding and said he'd work to implement the review's recommendations.
Newshub.
