Video: USAID team brings experience and expertise to Cyclone recovery effort
A team from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been on the ground in Hawke’s Bay, adding “extra horsepower” to the Cyclone Gabrielle recovery effort.
Nine members of the team have been working out of the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group in Hastings, while four others were based at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) at the Beehive in Wellington. The team returns home this weekend.
Team leader Scott Dehnisch, who has been with USAID for 14 years and has 20 years in wildland fire services, says each member has a background in emergency management, firefighting and wildland firefighting, with specialities in operations, logistics, planning and public information.
“We're coming up on day 10. Our focus is just to support the staff here at the Coordination Centre. We're coming in to supplement the staff to give them a break. Many of these operations are very long in duration as we go into that recovery phase. And our response right now is really getting commodities out from the Distribution Centre out to the communities and working with them to make sure they're well-placed for that recovery effort,” Dehnisch said in an interview with Hawke’s Bay App this week.
The USAID team is part of an international response to the Cyclone, which included a Fijian military contingent and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services’ AUS-1 Disaster Assistance Response Team (Dart) from Australia.
Dehnisch says his team has integrated well into the New Zealand system, as the United States has a similar response management system.
“Most of what USAID responds to are large, complex disasters. We have responses in Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Syria.”
“This is a very significant disaster. Nothing since really Christchurch earthquake has something this significant happened. And in the US, this would again be a major event.
“The work that has been done here is amazing, and the level of effort here is absolutely amazing, both from the people in emergency management, but also the army of volunteers who have really made a lot of these operations happen.”
He says that the partnership between the United States and New Zealand in emergency management and firefighting is strong, with New Zealand supporting the US in wildland firefighting seven times since 2018.
Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group Controller Ian Macdonald says that the USAID team fitted in well because they use similar systems in the United States.
“But, also they bring that experience and at that time, a couple of weeks ago, when they came into the response, we really needed some experienced emergency managers who could help what we were doing on the ground, provide some advice, but also provide that mentoring.”
“Their brief from me was to make sure that we were looking at the bigger picture. They did a great job around that. They brought another level of professionalism to the response.”
