The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1968. The Storm

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31653, 13 April 1968, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1968. The Storm

People and places throughout New Zealand will carry for many years the scars left by this week’s storm. Loss of life, injury, and material damage have made this a heartbreaking week. Immense efforts have been made to bring relief and comfort, to maintain communications, to restore services, to ward off worse disaster, and to rescue and salvage. From many quarters evidence has come to show that, but for these efforts, the disaster would have been immeasurably greater. Day and night, emergency services of all kinds have been engaged; and thousands of professional and voluntary workers have braved dangers and discomfort to assist others. They have earned the gratitude of the community for their work.

In several parts of New Zealand ravaged by the storm limited use was made of the civil defence system to assist those on whose shoulders fell the immediate responsibility for rescue and relief. Serious trouble in Christchurch was confined to a few suburbs: and it was not necessary to transfer control of the emergency work to the civil defence organisation. The police, supported by the men and vehicles of the Armed Services and by volunteer workers, found the emergency well within their capacity. The civil defence system therefore was not put to a serious test The police are satisfied that all calls for assistance were met; and unless some evidence is produced to show that calls for help went unanswered, or were inadequately answered, the decision of the police to use the resources directly available to them must be accepted as sound. If the rescue operation was deficient it was deficient not because of the shortcomings of the civil defence organisation but because the police may have underestimated the plight of some people. The events of the last two days should give the civil defence organisers useful guidance for the future, when some similar emergency, more acute and more widespread, might call for general action. These events should also settle any doubts about the need for a civil defence system, fully manned and fully prepared. Some future disaster might strike with much less warning than Christchurch had of this terrible and destructive storm.