April 4, 2025 • 33 mins
When a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch in February 2011, crisis manager Brendan Winder faced the ultimate test of leadership. The devastation was immense - 185 lives lost, 8,000 properties abandoned, and a city center that would need to be completely reimagined.
Brendan takes us behind the scenes of the emergency response, revealing the split-second decisions that saved lives and the fortuitous coincidences that bolstered their efforts. Australian police officers were quickly dispatched to assist, a military exercise was already underway nearby, and a Navy warship happened to be docked with double its normal command staff. These unexpected resources proved crucial during those chaotic first days when situational awareness was nearly impossible to maintain across the affected areas.
The conversation delves into the evolution of crisis management practices since the earthquake. Communication strategies have shifted dramatically, now incorporating sophisticated PACE plans (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) and multi-channel approaches that recognize not everyone trusts government sources. Perhaps most significantly, the approach to responder mental health has transformed from the old "bite down on your mouthguard and keep boxing" mentality to comprehensive trauma and fatigue management systems that acknowledge the long-term psychological impacts of disaster response.
What stands out most powerfully is Brendan's perspective on recovery - often more challenging than the initial crisis response. His advice to Los Angeles residents affected by recent wildfires balances sobering realism about the difficult journey ahead with genuine hope, pointing to Christchurch's eventual renaissance with modern infrastructure and renewed community spirit. The shipping containers that once supported damaged facades and housed temporary businesses became unexpected symbols of resilience and adaptive thinking.
The most valuable takeaway? Emergency management must remain fundamentally human-centered. As Brendan explains, "These big emergency responses aren't about buildings, they aren't about infrastructure... they're about people." His team now includes a symbolic "community persona" in all decision-making to ensure institutional needs never override community welfare - a practice that ensures better outcomes for everyone when disaster strikes.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom Mueller (00:08):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management and we
like to share stories andlessons learned from experienced
crisis leaders.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Marc Mullen, my esteemedco-host, is with me again today.
Hey, mark.
Marc Mullen (00:26):
Hello Tom, Happy to be here with you.
Tom Mueller (00:29):
We are today.
We're traveling down to theSouthern Hemisphere, to
Christchurch, new Zealand, totalk about earthquake response.
Our guest today is BrendanWinder, who is a crisis manager
in Christchurch, and he wasthere for well, for multiple
(00:50):
earthquakes over time, but theone we're going to talk about
was in February of 2011, whichwas a very large quake that
we'll get into in just a moment.
Give you some details aboutthat.
But, brendan, welcome to thepodcast.
Brenden Winder (01:05):
Thank you very much, tom, and thank you.
Tom Mueller (01:13):
Mark, real pleasure to be here.
Brendan, give us a quickthumbnail of your crisis
experience and your background,kind of what led you to where
you are today?
Brenden Winder (01:19):
Sure, yeah, like many in the industry, I started
out in the military, I was inthe Navy and then in 2005,
joined the emergency managementsector full-time as a sole
charge emergency managementofficer in Queenstown, new
Zealand.
I spent quite a bit of timetraining with the crew here in
Christchurch in Canterbury, newZealand, and then the earthquake
(01:40):
hit.
The first one was 2010.
And I came up to help with that.
And then we had the big one,february 2011, and I've pretty
much been here ever since invarious recovery and response
roles.
Tom Mueller (01:55):
Well, you've got really a unique experience it
feels like to me anyway in termsof the scale of incidents that
you've worked with in yourcareer.
I just want to touch base.
I just want to give a fewdetails about this 2011 quake so
our audience has a goodunderstanding of what we're
(02:16):
talking about here.
And this, the quake was a 6.3magnitude and the some of the
aftershocks that came throughwere 5.6.
So, in addition to the bigquake, you had a lot of smaller
but still very large quakesshaking the town.
It was a true tragedy in that185 people were killed in
(02:40):
collapsing buildings and slidesand such so really a horrific
incident.
8,000 properties ended up beingpurchased by the government and
raised, so that's 8,000 homes,businesses that families could
no longer occupy, or businessesas well.
The scale of this is just sortof astounding.
(03:05):
But, brendan, obviously NewZealand tends to be quake prone,
so how prepared are you fromemergency management perspective
today to deal with these typesof incidents now?
Brenden Winder (03:20):
So much better now than we were in 2010 and 11.
And I just want to take amoment to acknowledge the people
that passed in that event andthe many other people that were
affected by it also.
So you know, one of ourresponsibilities in emergency
management is to learn fromthese circumstances.
(03:42):
So, to answer your question,we're much better prepared now
than we were then.
We learned some very toughlessons and that, I think, is
one of the key parts of our job.
Tom Mueller (03:53):
Can you just briefly paint a picture for our
audience of what you saw?
You know, you first respondedto this and then we'll kind of
talk about the scale of theresponse and that.
But you know, paint us thatpicture, this, and then we'll
kind of talk about the scale ofthe response and that.
But you know, paint us thatpicture.
What did you see?
Brenden Winder (04:10):
So I was not in Christchurch for the big event
in February.
I was living in Queensland atthe time.
The media coverage wasimmediate and I flew up the
following day to help out.
But what I saw actually on theway in from the airport the
airport's to the west ofChristchurch what I saw on the
(04:32):
way in was very little damage.
Surprisingly, and I waswondering on the way in was
mostly suburban single-storystick-frame buildings that
respond very well to earthquakes, multi-story high-rise
(05:07):
buildings.
And it became apparent that thescale of the event and severity
hadn't been overblown at all.
It just affected differentbuildings in different ways and
as I got towards the CentralBusiness District I was very
clear there that the scale ofthe event was very significant
and it was going to have a bigimpact on a lot of people.
Marc Mullen (05:23):
You were going there at the time from a
different location.
When you got to the centerEmergency Operations Center was
everybody able to get there, orwere you running a skeleton crew
, or were you able to have allthe resources you needed from
the start?
Brenden Winder (05:41):
So interestingly because I arrived the following
day, some immediate actions hadbeen taken and I think they
saved a lot of lives.
Fences were erected around thecity, the central business
district of christchurch.
They call it the four avenues,these four big sort of roads
here in the city that form asort of ring road around the
city.
So it's about 11 kilometers, sosix or seven miles in usb.
(06:04):
So a six or seven mile fencewas put up around the city and
immediately everyone inside thatarea was evacuated.
So there was a lot of activity,lots of displaced business
people, lots of displacedresidents, the homeless
community, anyone who normallyspent time in that space had
(06:24):
been removed, and a number ofpeople like me were coming in to
help out.
So it was a very busy, verychaotic, very tense time With
everyone.
At that time everyone kind ofunderstood why it was happening,
so there was real support forthe decisions that had been made
, but it was still clearly avery chaotic, busy and intense
(06:48):
time.
Tom Mueller (06:49):
Given the training that you've had in this space
and the experience, were youable to set priorities and get
things moving very quickly?
Or was there that sort of earlyfog of war and chaos in those
first several days?
I think we've learned a lotsince then.
So the fog of war and chaos inthose first several days.
Brenden Winder (07:06):
I think we've learned a lot since then.
So the fog of war, whichabsolutely was in place then,
would be mitigated to an extentnow, but just given the scale of
the event, it was very hard tohave any degree of situational
awareness across the entireextent of the scale of the
(07:26):
emergency.
So, yes, fog of war, but also,yes, priorities.
And if you ever find yourselfin the fog of war, one of your
first priorities must be is togain situational awareness.
So when you don't know what'shappening, you do know that you
need to know what's happening.
So one of the first prioritiesyou can make, let's find out
(07:48):
who's affected, what's affected,where is affected, and you need
to start deploying resources tofind out that information
quickly.
So even when there's a lot ofconfusion and uncertainty, there
can still be some simplepriorities that move you towards
your end game, which is to findout what's going on.
Tom Mueller (08:07):
You know you were run out of police officers very
quickly for doing that type ofassessment.
Did you involve others militaryand others to help scale up
that team?
Brenden Winder (08:19):
Yeah, so there was.
Interestingly, we didn't runout of police officers.
We had access to a whole lot ofAustralian cops and they came
over to New Zealand very quicklywithin days.
We also had a large militaryexercise going on just
serendipity, really just goodluck.
So they were quickly pivotedinto supporting a number of
(08:43):
activities.
There was a large ship in townin Littleton, our nearest port,
a warship in town from the RoyalNew Zealand Navy and, again
just good luck, they were doingcommand change.
They had two sets of commandteam on board at the same time,
so they were doubly resourcedjust through circumstance same
(09:08):
time.
So they were doubly resourcedjust through circumstance.
So the the navy set up inlittleton uh was to look after
the assailants first of all, butthen they quickly deployed into
littleton and provided a wholelot of relief and support uh to
that suburb as well.
And the army military um inchristchurch quickly configured
themselves to support there too.
So we had lots of support frompolice, australian police,
singaporean police and NewZealand police, but then also
(09:31):
New Zealand military as well.
So there was lots of uniformsaround and New Zealand's are
pretty good at respecting themilitary here.
So military and uniform policepersonnel on the ground was
quite reassuring and comforting,so that was a real benefit and
a real plus.
Personnel on the ground wasquite reassuring and comforting,
so that was a real benefit anda real plus early on in response
.
Marc Mullen (09:49):
So, when we talk about staffing and maybe just
for perspective, how long wereyour shifts, how long per day
did you work and how many dayswere you there?
Did?
Brenden Winder (10:03):
you work and how many days were you there?
So I was a part of the initialsplanning set up in our
emergency operation center.
So in New Zealand it comes inthree levels.
There's the national emergencymanagement agency, broadly
equivalent to FEMA.
Then we have a regionalemergency management group,
which would be for us inChristchurch.
(10:26):
Our regional group isCanterbury, so it's a provincial
set up.
And then we have the local setup too, which is where I am now
at Christchurch City.
At the time I was working forthe national agency.
Largely that system thereshould operate in their own
geolocations, but in thiscircumstance it was all
collapsed into one emergencyoperations centre which, just
(10:49):
through a bit of bad luck,actually the locations here in
Christchurch were in the processof being swapped over.
So we ended up after a coupleof changes.
We ended up operating out ofour art gallery, which
thankfully is a big modernbuilding, and we had hundreds
and I don't know the exactnumber, but it was easily three
or four or 500 people in thereoperating 24-7.
(11:12):
And that process carried on forI suspect I don't know the
exact time, but it was probablysix weeks at 24-7.
And then we carried through allthe way from February to April
the 18th of that year where wetransitioned into a recovery
setup, with hundreds more peoplein that setup as well.
(11:33):
So heavily resourced, lots ofpeople, lots of interest, lots
of media and lots of activity.
Tom Mueller (11:41):
Well, I want to talk to you in just a moment
about communications aspects ofthis.
But the you know the challengesof dealing with displaced
population and I don't know ifyou can tell us, kind of how
many people were actuallydisplaced and moved into
evacuation shelters, and then,of course, all the logistics for
(12:01):
providing for those people.
How did that whole process playout?
Brenden Winder (12:07):
Yeah, so at the time it was relatively organic.
But thankfully the evacuationprocess in the CBD meant it was
about somewhere in the magnitudeof 5,000 people who could no
longer go back to their house.
They just could not do that.
It was unsafe to do so.
Plus, there was a whole groupof people whose houses were
(12:28):
affected, mainly in the easternpart of the city, and that
number is unknown because manyof those houses were damaged but
still broadly livable.
So some people chose to moveout.
Some people had to move out andfiguring out the numbers around
that is difficult because forvarious reasons, but mainly in
the welfare centres we weretrying to transition the people
(12:51):
through those and to be lookedafter with friends and family.
There was also a whole lot ofcommercial accommodation options
used and in New Zealand ourindigenous population, of which
I'm a part, the Maori population, they have what are called
marae and in a marae that's alarge meeting house they
(13:11):
designed to accommodate lots ofpeople for periods of time, for
funerals, for weddings, forother important functions, and
the Marae in Christchurch andaround Christchurch all stood up
very quickly, supported theentire community, not just their
own indigenous community, andthey provided a lot of welfare
and evacuation resources as well, community, and they provided a
(13:35):
lot of welfare and evacuationresources as well.
So there was an organic model,there was the organized model
and a whole lot of otheractivities on the side of that
too.
Because of the scale of it, itwas very hard to get exact
numbers, but several thousandpeople over several months, and
in fact there's still people nowthat are battling to get back
into their homes.
Tom Mueller (13:52):
Talk to us a little bit, if you can Brendan, about
the communications aspects of it.
You know my picture of this isthat you've got significant
infrastructure damage, and soyou know what were the main
lines of communications that youhad available then to reach the
affected population and howsuccessful were those.
Brenden Winder (14:15):
So, yeah, there was significant infrastructure
damage Now.
So we're talking 2011 now.
Things have changed since thenmuch more misinformation,
disinformation, malinformationnow in that ecosystem, but at
the time it was still prettywell behaved.
So the cell phone towers NewZealand still has a mixture, or
(14:35):
had a mixture then, of landlinesin the house and many people
had cell phones most of them,nearly everyone but at the time
the cell phone towers went downbecause of overuse.
So they didn't go down becausethey had lost power or
disconnected from the network.
They were overwhelmed in termsof volume of calls.
So what we've figured out sincethen is it's far better to text
(14:58):
, send a short message systemthrough to someone and then,
when the system allows, it'llspit it through and you can pick
it up rather than trying tocall.
So the voice calling cell phonenetwork went down.
Landlines were impacted in someareas because earthquakes moved
the land and the landlinesmostly copper wires laid
(15:18):
underground were impacted.
So that was a challenge.
But the radio networks workedvery well.
The TV broadcasting networksworked very well, so there was
still enough channels andopportunities to get the
messages out there.
So I think we were lucky inthat regard, where most of our
infrastructure was veryresilient.
The electricity infrastructurehad been strengthened.
(15:40):
Very recently the water networkin the roads got beaten up.
That happens in earthquakes, ofcourse, but in terms of
communications getting broadcastmessages out to large groups of
people, facebook and otherplatforms we're still available
to.
So we can get comms out to thecommunity, to most of the
community, pretty quickly.
Tom Mueller (16:02):
Just lead us through your plan today If you
had a major incident like this.
Are you much more geared towardsocial media communications and
that?
How might it be different?
Brenden Winder (16:18):
Yeah, so we run a PACE plan now and I'm sure
that will be familiar to many ofyour listeners.
We have primary, alternate,contingency and emergency
communications mechanisms.
So we have a very clear PACEplan that we would use and it's
largely dependent onavailability and broadcast scale
.
So what can we use and who willit get to?
(16:41):
We take a very muchmulti-channel approach so we
will put messages on all theavailable broadcast channels to
try and connect with people thatway, also really aware that
some people don't necessarilytrust the government.
So we'll be trying to putinformation in front of leaders
and influencers in theircommunities so they can amplify
(17:04):
those messages and hopefullyit'll get to those people who
have less trust in government.
But there's a lot of low techmethods we use too.
So word of mouth bulletins,we'll go door to door.
If we need to, we'll postthings in appropriate places and
notice boards etc.
So very much a multi-channel.
(17:25):
Lots of people working in lotsof spaces broadcasting critical
messages.
Regularly as well.
We get how important comms is.
It's hugely influential on theinitial actions in an event when
comms is done right.
Marc Mullen (17:43):
So how did again, so many of you were there, so
many of you were affected, howdid you handle the emotional
load of looking around andseeing your people and your city
impacted by this when you're inthe middle of trying to respond
?
Brenden Winder (17:59):
I think we'd do it differently if we did it
again.
The approach we took at thetime was just a buddy bite down
on your mouth guard and keep onboxing.
You know, it was kind of theold-fashioned approach just keep
going and keep going and keepgoing until you fall over and
you get up and do it all againand, uh, we saw some people, um,
you know not respond to that.
(18:20):
Well, in the long term, themore modern, contemporary
approach would be much moreabout managing fatigue and
managing trauma, managing theemotional response.
We're far more sophisticatednow and better prepared and more
aware of the toll it takes onthe community, but also the
first responders as well.
Myself and many of mycolleagues reflect on those
(18:43):
times as being hugely impactful,and not always positively, on
our emotional and mental health.
Marc Mullen (18:54):
Did some of that have a long tail, In other words
, after response and afterrecovery?
I'm guessing that a lot ofpeople kind of carried some of
that stress with them as theywere demobilized and sent back
home.
Was there any effort atmonitoring or helping them with
those high stress resolutions?
Brenden Winder (19:17):
Yeah, absolutely , and for many people that
stress hasn't gone away.
So the long tail of recoveryfor us.
We think it'll be at leastgenerational these kids in
Christchurch that have had fivenational states of emergency in
the first 15 years of their lifeand that introduces trauma into
(19:38):
their life where no one wantstheir kids to go through it.
Some kids here have done itmultiple occasions.
So plenty of adults here andkids here with experience of
that.
Demobilising from the responseand going home is a part of it.
There's people here with trauma15 years later, and we need to
acknowledge that and do itbetter next time.
(20:00):
I would say, though, there wasquite a lot of effort and that's
probably understanding it areally significant effort put in
towards managing mental healthand stress through the agencies
here in New Zealand.
So a lot of time and effort wasinvested, and I think in the
future we'd do at least thatagain.
Tom Mueller (20:22):
Talk to us a little bit about training today,
brendan.
Has your training regimenchanged as a result of all these
experiences, and what do you doto keep people honed and ready
for a major incident now?
Brenden Winder (20:49):
think training is a part of a continuum.
So for us, um, we start um atthe learning and awareness stage
, so understanding the hazardsand the impacts of it, so
learning about it, and then, uh,we uh go through that whole
process to understand it, andthen there's training to respond
to it, then exercising that andthen delivering it as well.
So the view we've taken is weneed to be fit to respond and
(21:14):
that's fit in a sort ofemotional, physiological sense,
mental as well.
So that's a mixture of skillset but also mindset, skillset
but also mindset.
And when we're training, theanalogy that we use is we need
to be going, for we need to beexercising often to get
ourselves fit.
(21:34):
So you wouldn't train for amarathon by going for one 10
hour run once a year.
You'd train for a marathon byrunning two or three times a
week and building your skills upover time.
So we take an approach where wenow train with much greater
frequency and higher intensityand we give ourselves way more
scope too.
So rather than just saying, inan earthquake, buildings fall
(21:56):
over, how do you deal with thebuildings?
We are training specifically incomms, specifically in
psychological first aid,specifically around evacuations,
specifically in psychologicalfirst aid, specifically around
evacuations, specifically aroundshelter in place, specifically
around how do we managelogistics and intelligence and
planning, et cetera.
So we have higher frequencywith more detail and more
(22:19):
intensity.
Marc Mullen (22:21):
That's how you train responders, or is that to
focus on the entire population?
Brenden Winder (22:25):
So that's the responders.
Yeah, we need to be careful onthe entire population.
So that's the responders.
Uh, yeah, we need to be carefulwith the um, you know, the
civilian population, thecommunity, we don't.
We need to balance having anunderstanding of the risk but
also allowing them to lead theirlife.
We can re-traumatize people bymaking them or, you know, asking
them to do more readinessactivities, um, but we have to
(22:46):
find that balance.
If we don't give them enoughpreparation activities, then
their skill fade and knowledgefade and they begin to sort of
reduce their interest in thehazard.
But if we do too much, it goesthe other way.
So we've got to try and findthat sweet spot where we can do
just enough, and there's a realchallenge in that.
Marc Mullen (23:05):
I'm a survivor of the great orcas island
earthquake of 2025.
It was two nights ago.
We were awakened in our bed byour earthquake alarms at 205 tom
.
It's the classic 2 am call youget.
It reminded me again of justhow befuddled you can be in the
middle of the night when you'rejarred awake by an alarm and
(23:26):
you're trying to figure out whatexactly you should do at that
moment.
And so you know it'sinteresting we're having this
call today because I justrealized it's not like you can
say there, I have shoes by thebed.
You've got to figure out what itis really like when you're
waking in the middle of thenight and you have to make
decisions.
So that's why I asked that itsounds like there's a balance,
(23:48):
but somewhere there individualshave to know what to do.
First.
It was a real reminder to meagain you think you can do
something, you think you'reready, you think you'll think
coherently.
And then the next morning wewere looking and say, why is the
shower curtain open?
And we realized that we'd runto decide if we should jump in
the bathtub.
Brenden Winder (24:08):
One of the activities I asked my team to do
is no notice exercises, so wedon't know where it's happening
or when it's happening.
We can't assume we're going tobe sitting at our desk with all
our tools and resourcesavailable to us when the event
happens.
So to your comment earlier,mark atm are you ready?
Are you prepared?
Can you get in?
(24:28):
Can you get to where you needto be with the people you need,
with the tools you need to makethe decisions you need?
When you're literally pullingyourself out of bed looking at
your wife and kids and figuringout what can happen in your
house, it's, um, we need to beready for everything all the
time, and that could be toughlifestyle to to live through
because you're just always onand there's always a stress
(24:50):
about that.
Tom Mueller (24:50):
But you know if you're getting called out well
we try and balance that.
Brenden Winder (24:54):
Uh, we try and balance it, tom.
So so we have duty people andwe have a um it's called the
cooper color code and in therethere's um colors that relate to
different levels of alertness,colors that relate to different
levels of alertness, and what Iencourage our guys to do is
occasionally you know, weekendsand holidays is to go off
completely.
Just shut it all right down.
(25:14):
Give your body a chance torecharge and reset in your mind,
because if you stay tooheightened for too long, it ends
up being counterproductive.
So we want to go in and out ofthose phases of alertness and we
want the team to be doing it atdifferent times so we can have
coverage but also rest andrespite as well.
You can't sprint for two hours.
(25:35):
That's just not possible.
So we need to have peoplerested so we can sprint them
when we need them.
Tom Mueller (25:40):
Recovery was a huge challenge in response to the
earthquake situations there.
Brendan, and I know you've beenthinking about the Americans in
Los Angeles who've been dealingwith the Pacific Palisades
wildfires which destroyed oh, Ithink it was 11,000 structures
(26:00):
recently, as you think aboutyour experience and then what's
happening in Los Angeles nowwith Pacific Palisades, what's
your advice for the people ofLos Angeles today?
Brenden Winder (26:12):
Yeah, look.
First of all I just say to themit's a tough event and the fire
will be a big challenge, butthe recovery might be a bigger
challenge and there needs to bea really honest conversation
about that.
The insurance complicationswill be just beginning.
The litigation will bebeginning.
The leadership in the cityneeds to be coherent and
(26:34):
committed and organized and haveany disputes that it may have
behind closed doors, because thecommunity will be looking for
leadership.
The scale of the event will meanthat it's going to shift the
construction and demolitionmarket in that part of the state
.
So having people in there thatunderstand the market forces at
(26:55):
play, the volume and velocity ofinformation moving around will
be overwhelming.
For many people feed and justthe sheer number, the sheer
amount of what you need to knowwho to talk to when, about what
will be it'll be overwhelmingand for many people they'll need
assistance in navigatingthrough that.
(27:16):
The time it'll take will seemhorribly longer than it should
be.
But I guess the final bit Ijust want to say well, not the
final bit, but I just want tosort of tag it on the end is
we've had a large-scale eventhere in christchurch and it's
traumatic and it's tough andit's expensive and all those
things.
But, man, we've got a good city.
Now.
You know, after you go throughall that and you get that, um,
(27:38):
you go through the insurance,you go through the trauma and
you go through all the response,the recovery dividend in
christchurch here, with stadiumsand arenas and sports fields
and the quality of the buildingsin our CBD.
We're now really modern, reallyforward looking, really clean,
really green, really wellorganized, really well led.
But you know we had to gothrough a lot to get here and I
(28:01):
think the people in LA, if theycan hold on to that hope that
the future will be brighter,they'll come out the other side
of it.
If they can hold on to thathope, it'll make some of those
tough days through to recoverymaybe slightly less tough.
Marc Mullen (28:15):
Realism about what you have to go through now, but
also realism about what willcome out at the very end, sort
of that balanced hope.
Brenden Winder (28:23):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, there is some tough daysahead, but there's also some
brighter days ahead too, and ifyou can deal with one and focus
on the other, you'll get throughit.
Tom Mueller (28:34):
Brendan, one personal question for you from
my perspective, because my wifeand I visited Christ Church in
2017, and just a family vacationand we noticed in the Central
Business District there are lotsof containers the shipping
containers stacked up alongsidebuildings there and it looked
(28:57):
like they were there keeping thestructures up or what was.
Can you tell me what the theorywas or what was happening with
all those boxes?
Brenden Winder (29:08):
Yeah, so your instincts are bang on, tom.
Those shipping containers whichare stacked the bottom one is
typically filled up with gravelor some other aggregate to make
it nice and heavy.
Then it's mechanicallyconnected and they have two or
three more on top of it and theidea is that allows the traffic
to move past it safely, becausethose big box structures are
(29:29):
never going to move, but thoseshipping containers then allow
work to go on behind it.
So typically what's happened isthe building behind it has a
facade which is not safe for thepublic to be moving past.
So the shipping containersprotect the public from the
facade to be moving past.
So the shipping containersprotect the public from the
facade and the shippingcontainers also allow work to go
(29:50):
on behind the facade so thatthat can be repaired or
demolished or made safe orwhatever needs to happen in
behind it to allow some of theheritage aspects of the city to
be retained as well.
So you might have also noticedwhile you're here too, we use a
number of shipping containers tomake a retail mall in the CBD,
because that could be done veryquickly, and that's happened in
a few places on a smaller scalearound the world.
We had a big container mallhere in Christchurch.
(30:12):
There was dozens of them and itwas so popular that it became a
cruise ship sort of tourismattraction.
And it became in fact sopopular when the time came to
remove them people were sayingactually leave them there.
So a really good sign thatrecovery is going well is when
the temporary measures become sopopular and so well used that
people want to hold on to them.
(30:32):
They've gone now and we're backinto a normal retail
environment, but those shippingcontainers were a really useful
part of our early recoveryarrangements.
Tom Mueller (30:41):
Fascinating.
I remember seeing a number ofbusinesses operating out of
containers while we were there,mostly small coffee shops or
something small retail like that, but it was very sort of
creative way to get things backopen quickly.
Brandon, anything else youwanted to mention as part of
this conversation with us today?
Brenden Winder (31:02):
Yeah, probably the final thing for me is, just
as a responder, we get reminded,but it's very easy to lose
sight of.
It is these big emergencyresponses aren't about buildings
, they aren't aboutinfrastructure, they aren't
about power and water, they'reabout people, and keeping the
community at the centre ofresponse is professionally the
(31:25):
right thing to do, but ethicallyand morally the right thing to
do as well.
And one thing the team and Ihave done here in Christchurch
is we've created a persona, andit sounds a little bit silly but
it's been very effective for us.
We have designed a person inour team.
They're made up, but they havea life and they have a name and
they have friends and they havea job and they have a seat at
(31:45):
our table.
So when we're sitting down anddoing our emergency management
work, we reference this personwho personifies the community
and kind of check in to makesure that the decisions that
we're making make sense and wecheck do they really benefit
this person or is this decisionserving the institution or is it
serving the community?
And if it's serving theinstitution or is it serving the
community and if it's servingthe institution, we'll have
(32:07):
another look at it to say,actually, is this the right?
Is this the right idea?
Because if it's not serving thecommunity, it's probably not
the right decision in the longrun.
So that's a little tip andtrick that we use to do that.
Um, I know other policeagencies and organizations have
the the empty chair, which iskind of also a similar sort of
(32:28):
concept.
We have an empty chair at thetable to signify the community,
because they have to and must beat the center of response.
And if we can all do that, Ithink all our responses will be
a little bit better.
Tom Mueller (32:42):
Gentlemen, I think we'll stop there.
It's been a terrificconversation.
Brendan, Thank you very muchfor taking a little bit of time
to share your experiences withus and with our audience.
Thanks also for your wishes forthe folks of Los Angeles and
your advice and counsel to themon what's coming and what to
expect going forward.
Brenden Winder (33:02):
No problem.
Thank you, mark.
Thank you, tom, it's been areal pleasure.
Thank you.
Tom Mueller (33:06):
And that's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
If you like what you're hearing, please like and subscribe to
the podcast and also tell yourfriends about us as well, and
we'll see you again soon.
Marc Mullen (33:25):
Thank you.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management and we
like to share stories andlessons learned from experienced
crisis leaders.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Marc Mullen, my esteemedco-host, is with me again today.
Hey, mark.
Marc Mullen (00:26):
Hello Tom, Happy to be here with you.
Tom Mueller (00:29):
We are today.
We're traveling down to theSouthern Hemisphere, to
Christchurch, new Zealand, totalk about earthquake response.
Our guest today is BrendanWinder, who is a crisis manager
in Christchurch, and he wasthere for well, for multiple
(00:50):
earthquakes over time, but theone we're going to talk about
was in February of 2011, whichwas a very large quake that
we'll get into in just a moment.
Give you some details aboutthat.
But, brendan, welcome to thepodcast.
Brenden Winder (01:05):
Thank you very much, tom, and thank you.
Tom Mueller (01:13):
Mark, real pleasure to be here.
Brendan, give us a quickthumbnail of your crisis
experience and your background,kind of what led you to where
you are today?
Brenden Winder (01:19):
Sure, yeah, like many in the industry, I started
out in the military, I was inthe Navy and then in 2005,
joined the emergency managementsector full-time as a sole
charge emergency managementofficer in Queenstown, new
Zealand.
I spent quite a bit of timetraining with the crew here in
Christchurch in Canterbury, newZealand, and then the earthquake
(01:40):
hit.
The first one was 2010.
And I came up to help with that.
And then we had the big one,february 2011, and I've pretty
much been here ever since invarious recovery and response
roles.
Tom Mueller (01:55):
Well, you've got really a unique experience it
feels like to me anyway in termsof the scale of incidents that
you've worked with in yourcareer.
I just want to touch base.
I just want to give a fewdetails about this 2011 quake so
our audience has a goodunderstanding of what we're
(02:16):
talking about here.
And this, the quake was a 6.3magnitude and the some of the
aftershocks that came throughwere 5.6.
So, in addition to the bigquake, you had a lot of smaller
but still very large quakesshaking the town.
It was a true tragedy in that185 people were killed in
(02:40):
collapsing buildings and slidesand such so really a horrific
incident.
8,000 properties ended up beingpurchased by the government and
raised, so that's 8,000 homes,businesses that families could
no longer occupy, or businessesas well.
The scale of this is just sortof astounding.
(03:05):
But, brendan, obviously NewZealand tends to be quake prone,
so how prepared are you fromemergency management perspective
today to deal with these typesof incidents now?
Brenden Winder (03:20):
So much better now than we were in 2010 and 11.
And I just want to take amoment to acknowledge the people
that passed in that event andthe many other people that were
affected by it also.
So you know, one of ourresponsibilities in emergency
management is to learn fromthese circumstances.
(03:42):
So, to answer your question,we're much better prepared now
than we were then.
We learned some very toughlessons and that, I think, is
one of the key parts of our job.
Tom Mueller (03:53):
Can you just briefly paint a picture for our
audience of what you saw?
You know, you first respondedto this and then we'll kind of
talk about the scale of theresponse and that.
But you know, paint us thatpicture, this, and then we'll
kind of talk about the scale ofthe response and that.
But you know, paint us thatpicture.
What did you see?
Brenden Winder (04:10):
So I was not in Christchurch for the big event
in February.
I was living in Queensland atthe time.
The media coverage wasimmediate and I flew up the
following day to help out.
But what I saw actually on theway in from the airport the
airport's to the west ofChristchurch what I saw on the
(04:32):
way in was very little damage.
Surprisingly, and I waswondering on the way in was
mostly suburban single-storystick-frame buildings that
respond very well to earthquakes, multi-story high-rise
(05:07):
buildings.
And it became apparent that thescale of the event and severity
hadn't been overblown at all.
It just affected differentbuildings in different ways and
as I got towards the CentralBusiness District I was very
clear there that the scale ofthe event was very significant
and it was going to have a bigimpact on a lot of people.
Marc Mullen (05:23):
You were going there at the time from a
different location.
When you got to the centerEmergency Operations Center was
everybody able to get there, orwere you running a skeleton crew
, or were you able to have allthe resources you needed from
the start?
Brenden Winder (05:41):
So interestingly because I arrived the following
day, some immediate actions hadbeen taken and I think they
saved a lot of lives.
Fences were erected around thecity, the central business
district of christchurch.
They call it the four avenues,these four big sort of roads
here in the city that form asort of ring road around the
city.
So it's about 11 kilometers, sosix or seven miles in usb.
(06:04):
So a six or seven mile fencewas put up around the city and
immediately everyone inside thatarea was evacuated.
So there was a lot of activity,lots of displaced business
people, lots of displacedresidents, the homeless
community, anyone who normallyspent time in that space had
(06:24):
been removed, and a number ofpeople like me were coming in to
help out.
So it was a very busy, verychaotic, very tense time With
everyone.
At that time everyone kind ofunderstood why it was happening,
so there was real support forthe decisions that had been made
, but it was still clearly avery chaotic, busy and intense
(06:48):
time.
Tom Mueller (06:49):
Given the training that you've had in this space
and the experience, were youable to set priorities and get
things moving very quickly?
Or was there that sort of earlyfog of war and chaos in those
first several days?
I think we've learned a lotsince then.
So the fog of war and chaos inthose first several days.
Brenden Winder (07:06):
I think we've learned a lot since then.
So the fog of war, whichabsolutely was in place then,
would be mitigated to an extentnow, but just given the scale of
the event, it was very hard tohave any degree of situational
awareness across the entireextent of the scale of the
(07:26):
emergency.
So, yes, fog of war, but also,yes, priorities.
And if you ever find yourselfin the fog of war, one of your
first priorities must be is togain situational awareness.
So when you don't know what'shappening, you do know that you
need to know what's happening.
So one of the first prioritiesyou can make, let's find out
(07:48):
who's affected, what's affected,where is affected, and you need
to start deploying resources tofind out that information
quickly.
So even when there's a lot ofconfusion and uncertainty, there
can still be some simplepriorities that move you towards
your end game, which is to findout what's going on.
Tom Mueller (08:07):
You know you were run out of police officers very
quickly for doing that type ofassessment.
Did you involve others militaryand others to help scale up
that team?
Brenden Winder (08:19):
Yeah, so there was.
Interestingly, we didn't runout of police officers.
We had access to a whole lot ofAustralian cops and they came
over to New Zealand very quicklywithin days.
We also had a large militaryexercise going on just
serendipity, really just goodluck.
So they were quickly pivotedinto supporting a number of
(08:43):
activities.
There was a large ship in townin Littleton, our nearest port,
a warship in town from the RoyalNew Zealand Navy and, again
just good luck, they were doingcommand change.
They had two sets of commandteam on board at the same time,
so they were doubly resourcedjust through circumstance same
(09:08):
time.
So they were doubly resourcedjust through circumstance.
So the the navy set up inlittleton uh was to look after
the assailants first of all, butthen they quickly deployed into
littleton and provided a wholelot of relief and support uh to
that suburb as well.
And the army military um inchristchurch quickly configured
themselves to support there too.
So we had lots of support frompolice, australian police,
singaporean police and NewZealand police, but then also
(09:31):
New Zealand military as well.
So there was lots of uniformsaround and New Zealand's are
pretty good at respecting themilitary here.
So military and uniform policepersonnel on the ground was
quite reassuring and comforting,so that was a real benefit and
a real plus.
Personnel on the ground wasquite reassuring and comforting,
so that was a real benefit anda real plus early on in response
.
Marc Mullen (09:49):
So, when we talk about staffing and maybe just
for perspective, how long wereyour shifts, how long per day
did you work and how many dayswere you there?
Did?
Brenden Winder (10:03):
you work and how many days were you there?
So I was a part of the initialsplanning set up in our
emergency operation center.
So in New Zealand it comes inthree levels.
There's the national emergencymanagement agency, broadly
equivalent to FEMA.
Then we have a regionalemergency management group,
which would be for us inChristchurch.
(10:26):
Our regional group isCanterbury, so it's a provincial
set up.
And then we have the local setup too, which is where I am now
at Christchurch City.
At the time I was working forthe national agency.
Largely that system thereshould operate in their own
geolocations, but in thiscircumstance it was all
collapsed into one emergencyoperations centre which, just
(10:49):
through a bit of bad luck,actually the locations here in
Christchurch were in the processof being swapped over.
So we ended up after a coupleof changes.
We ended up operating out ofour art gallery, which
thankfully is a big modernbuilding, and we had hundreds
and I don't know the exactnumber, but it was easily three
or four or 500 people in thereoperating 24-7.
(11:12):
And that process carried on forI suspect I don't know the
exact time, but it was probablysix weeks at 24-7.
And then we carried through allthe way from February to April
the 18th of that year where wetransitioned into a recovery
setup, with hundreds more peoplein that setup as well.
(11:33):
So heavily resourced, lots ofpeople, lots of interest, lots
of media and lots of activity.
Tom Mueller (11:41):
Well, I want to talk to you in just a moment
about communications aspects ofthis.
But the you know the challengesof dealing with displaced
population and I don't know ifyou can tell us, kind of how
many people were actuallydisplaced and moved into
evacuation shelters, and then,of course, all the logistics for
(12:01):
providing for those people.
How did that whole process playout?
Brenden Winder (12:07):
Yeah, so at the time it was relatively organic.
But thankfully the evacuationprocess in the CBD meant it was
about somewhere in the magnitudeof 5,000 people who could no
longer go back to their house.
They just could not do that.
It was unsafe to do so.
Plus, there was a whole groupof people whose houses were
(12:28):
affected, mainly in the easternpart of the city, and that
number is unknown because manyof those houses were damaged but
still broadly livable.
So some people chose to moveout.
Some people had to move out andfiguring out the numbers around
that is difficult because forvarious reasons, but mainly in
the welfare centres we weretrying to transition the people
(12:51):
through those and to be lookedafter with friends and family.
There was also a whole lot ofcommercial accommodation options
used and in New Zealand ourindigenous population, of which
I'm a part, the Maori population, they have what are called
marae and in a marae that's alarge meeting house they
(13:11):
designed to accommodate lots ofpeople for periods of time, for
funerals, for weddings, forother important functions, and
the Marae in Christchurch andaround Christchurch all stood up
very quickly, supported theentire community, not just their
own indigenous community, andthey provided a lot of welfare
and evacuation resources as well, community, and they provided a
(13:35):
lot of welfare and evacuationresources as well.
So there was an organic model,there was the organized model
and a whole lot of otheractivities on the side of that
too.
Because of the scale of it, itwas very hard to get exact
numbers, but several thousandpeople over several months, and
in fact there's still people nowthat are battling to get back
into their homes.
Tom Mueller (13:52):
Talk to us a little bit, if you can Brendan, about
the communications aspects of it.
You know my picture of this isthat you've got significant
infrastructure damage, and soyou know what were the main
lines of communications that youhad available then to reach the
affected population and howsuccessful were those.
Brenden Winder (14:15):
So, yeah, there was significant infrastructure
damage Now.
So we're talking 2011 now.
Things have changed since thenmuch more misinformation,
disinformation, malinformationnow in that ecosystem, but at
the time it was still prettywell behaved.
So the cell phone towers NewZealand still has a mixture, or
(14:35):
had a mixture then, of landlinesin the house and many people
had cell phones most of them,nearly everyone but at the time
the cell phone towers went downbecause of overuse.
So they didn't go down becausethey had lost power or
disconnected from the network.
They were overwhelmed in termsof volume of calls.
So what we've figured out sincethen is it's far better to text
(14:58):
, send a short message systemthrough to someone and then,
when the system allows, it'llspit it through and you can pick
it up rather than trying tocall.
So the voice calling cell phonenetwork went down.
Landlines were impacted in someareas because earthquakes moved
the land and the landlinesmostly copper wires laid
(15:18):
underground were impacted.
So that was a challenge.
But the radio networks workedvery well.
The TV broadcasting networksworked very well, so there was
still enough channels andopportunities to get the
messages out there.
So I think we were lucky inthat regard, where most of our
infrastructure was veryresilient.
The electricity infrastructurehad been strengthened.
(15:40):
Very recently the water networkin the roads got beaten up.
That happens in earthquakes, ofcourse, but in terms of
communications getting broadcastmessages out to large groups of
people, facebook and otherplatforms we're still available
to.
So we can get comms out to thecommunity, to most of the
community, pretty quickly.
Tom Mueller (16:02):
Just lead us through your plan today If you
had a major incident like this.
Are you much more geared towardsocial media communications and
that?
How might it be different?
Brenden Winder (16:18):
Yeah, so we run a PACE plan now and I'm sure
that will be familiar to many ofyour listeners.
We have primary, alternate,contingency and emergency
communications mechanisms.
So we have a very clear PACEplan that we would use and it's
largely dependent onavailability and broadcast scale
.
So what can we use and who willit get to?
(16:41):
We take a very muchmulti-channel approach so we
will put messages on all theavailable broadcast channels to
try and connect with people thatway, also really aware that
some people don't necessarilytrust the government.
So we'll be trying to putinformation in front of leaders
and influencers in theircommunities so they can amplify
(17:04):
those messages and hopefullyit'll get to those people who
have less trust in government.
But there's a lot of low techmethods we use too.
So word of mouth bulletins,we'll go door to door.
If we need to, we'll postthings in appropriate places and
notice boards etc.
So very much a multi-channel.
(17:25):
Lots of people working in lotsof spaces broadcasting critical
messages.
Regularly as well.
We get how important comms is.
It's hugely influential on theinitial actions in an event when
comms is done right.
Marc Mullen (17:43):
So how did again, so many of you were there, so
many of you were affected, howdid you handle the emotional
load of looking around andseeing your people and your city
impacted by this when you're inthe middle of trying to respond
?
Brenden Winder (17:59):
I think we'd do it differently if we did it
again.
The approach we took at thetime was just a buddy bite down
on your mouth guard and keep onboxing.
You know, it was kind of theold-fashioned approach just keep
going and keep going and keepgoing until you fall over and
you get up and do it all againand, uh, we saw some people, um,
you know not respond to that.
(18:20):
Well, in the long term, themore modern, contemporary
approach would be much moreabout managing fatigue and
managing trauma, managing theemotional response.
We're far more sophisticatednow and better prepared and more
aware of the toll it takes onthe community, but also the
first responders as well.
Myself and many of mycolleagues reflect on those
(18:43):
times as being hugely impactful,and not always positively, on
our emotional and mental health.
Marc Mullen (18:54):
Did some of that have a long tail, In other words
, after response and afterrecovery?
I'm guessing that a lot ofpeople kind of carried some of
that stress with them as theywere demobilized and sent back
home.
Was there any effort atmonitoring or helping them with
those high stress resolutions?
Brenden Winder (19:17):
Yeah, absolutely , and for many people that
stress hasn't gone away.
So the long tail of recoveryfor us.
We think it'll be at leastgenerational these kids in
Christchurch that have had fivenational states of emergency in
the first 15 years of their lifeand that introduces trauma into
(19:38):
their life where no one wantstheir kids to go through it.
Some kids here have done itmultiple occasions.
So plenty of adults here andkids here with experience of
that.
Demobilising from the responseand going home is a part of it.
There's people here with trauma15 years later, and we need to
acknowledge that and do itbetter next time.
(20:00):
I would say, though, there wasquite a lot of effort and that's
probably understanding it areally significant effort put in
towards managing mental healthand stress through the agencies
here in New Zealand.
So a lot of time and effort wasinvested, and I think in the
future we'd do at least thatagain.
Tom Mueller (20:22):
Talk to us a little bit about training today,
brendan.
Has your training regimenchanged as a result of all these
experiences, and what do you doto keep people honed and ready
for a major incident now?
Brenden Winder (20:49):
think training is a part of a continuum.
So for us, um, we start um atthe learning and awareness stage
, so understanding the hazardsand the impacts of it, so
learning about it, and then, uh,we uh go through that whole
process to understand it, andthen there's training to respond
to it, then exercising that andthen delivering it as well.
So the view we've taken is weneed to be fit to respond and
(21:14):
that's fit in a sort ofemotional, physiological sense,
mental as well.
So that's a mixture of skillset but also mindset, skillset
but also mindset.
And when we're training, theanalogy that we use is we need
to be going, for we need to beexercising often to get
ourselves fit.
(21:34):
So you wouldn't train for amarathon by going for one 10
hour run once a year.
You'd train for a marathon byrunning two or three times a
week and building your skills upover time.
So we take an approach where wenow train with much greater
frequency and higher intensityand we give ourselves way more
scope too.
So rather than just saying, inan earthquake, buildings fall
(21:56):
over, how do you deal with thebuildings?
We are training specifically incomms, specifically in
psychological first aid,specifically around evacuations,
specifically in psychologicalfirst aid, specifically around
evacuations, specifically aroundshelter in place, specifically
around how do we managelogistics and intelligence and
planning, et cetera.
So we have higher frequencywith more detail and more
(22:19):
intensity.
Marc Mullen (22:21):
That's how you train responders, or is that to
focus on the entire population?
Brenden Winder (22:25):
So that's the responders.
Yeah, we need to be careful onthe entire population.
So that's the responders.
Uh, yeah, we need to be carefulwith the um, you know, the
civilian population, thecommunity, we don't.
We need to balance having anunderstanding of the risk but
also allowing them to lead theirlife.
We can re-traumatize people bymaking them or, you know, asking
them to do more readinessactivities, um, but we have to
(22:46):
find that balance.
If we don't give them enoughpreparation activities, then
their skill fade and knowledgefade and they begin to sort of
reduce their interest in thehazard.
But if we do too much, it goesthe other way.
So we've got to try and findthat sweet spot where we can do
just enough, and there's a realchallenge in that.
Marc Mullen (23:05):
I'm a survivor of the great orcas island
earthquake of 2025.
It was two nights ago.
We were awakened in our bed byour earthquake alarms at 205 tom
.
It's the classic 2 am call youget.
It reminded me again of justhow befuddled you can be in the
middle of the night when you'rejarred awake by an alarm and
(23:26):
you're trying to figure out whatexactly you should do at that
moment.
And so you know it'sinteresting we're having this
call today because I justrealized it's not like you can
say there, I have shoes by thebed.
You've got to figure out what itis really like when you're
waking in the middle of thenight and you have to make
decisions.
So that's why I asked that itsounds like there's a balance,
(23:48):
but somewhere there individualshave to know what to do.
First.
It was a real reminder to meagain you think you can do
something, you think you'reready, you think you'll think
coherently.
And then the next morning wewere looking and say, why is the
shower curtain open?
And we realized that we'd runto decide if we should jump in
the bathtub.
Brenden Winder (24:08):
One of the activities I asked my team to do
is no notice exercises, so wedon't know where it's happening
or when it's happening.
We can't assume we're going tobe sitting at our desk with all
our tools and resourcesavailable to us when the event
happens.
So to your comment earlier,mark atm are you ready?
Are you prepared?
Can you get in?
(24:28):
Can you get to where you needto be with the people you need,
with the tools you need to makethe decisions you need?
When you're literally pullingyourself out of bed looking at
your wife and kids and figuringout what can happen in your
house, it's, um, we need to beready for everything all the
time, and that could be toughlifestyle to to live through
because you're just always onand there's always a stress
(24:50):
about that.
Tom Mueller (24:50):
But you know if you're getting called out well
we try and balance that.
Brenden Winder (24:54):
Uh, we try and balance it, tom.
So so we have duty people andwe have a um it's called the
cooper color code and in therethere's um colors that relate to
different levels of alertness,colors that relate to different
levels of alertness, and what Iencourage our guys to do is
occasionally you know, weekendsand holidays is to go off
completely.
Just shut it all right down.
(25:14):
Give your body a chance torecharge and reset in your mind,
because if you stay tooheightened for too long, it ends
up being counterproductive.
So we want to go in and out ofthose phases of alertness and we
want the team to be doing it atdifferent times so we can have
coverage but also rest andrespite as well.
You can't sprint for two hours.
(25:35):
That's just not possible.
So we need to have peoplerested so we can sprint them
when we need them.
Tom Mueller (25:40):
Recovery was a huge challenge in response to the
earthquake situations there.
Brendan, and I know you've beenthinking about the Americans in
Los Angeles who've been dealingwith the Pacific Palisades
wildfires which destroyed oh, Ithink it was 11,000 structures
(26:00):
recently, as you think aboutyour experience and then what's
happening in Los Angeles nowwith Pacific Palisades, what's
your advice for the people ofLos Angeles today?
Brenden Winder (26:12):
Yeah, look.
First of all I just say to themit's a tough event and the fire
will be a big challenge, butthe recovery might be a bigger
challenge and there needs to bea really honest conversation
about that.
The insurance complicationswill be just beginning.
The litigation will bebeginning.
The leadership in the cityneeds to be coherent and
(26:34):
committed and organized and haveany disputes that it may have
behind closed doors, because thecommunity will be looking for
leadership.
The scale of the event will meanthat it's going to shift the
construction and demolitionmarket in that part of the state
.
So having people in there thatunderstand the market forces at
(26:55):
play, the volume and velocity ofinformation moving around will
be overwhelming.
For many people feed and justthe sheer number, the sheer
amount of what you need to knowwho to talk to when, about what
will be it'll be overwhelmingand for many people they'll need
assistance in navigatingthrough that.
(27:16):
The time it'll take will seemhorribly longer than it should
be.
But I guess the final bit Ijust want to say well, not the
final bit, but I just want tosort of tag it on the end is
we've had a large-scale eventhere in christchurch and it's
traumatic and it's tough andit's expensive and all those
things.
But, man, we've got a good city.
Now.
You know, after you go throughall that and you get that, um,
(27:38):
you go through the insurance,you go through the trauma and
you go through all the response,the recovery dividend in
christchurch here, with stadiumsand arenas and sports fields
and the quality of the buildingsin our CBD.
We're now really modern, reallyforward looking, really clean,
really green, really wellorganized, really well led.
But you know we had to gothrough a lot to get here and I
(28:01):
think the people in LA, if theycan hold on to that hope that
the future will be brighter,they'll come out the other side
of it.
If they can hold on to thathope, it'll make some of those
tough days through to recoverymaybe slightly less tough.
Marc Mullen (28:15):
Realism about what you have to go through now, but
also realism about what willcome out at the very end, sort
of that balanced hope.
Brenden Winder (28:23):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, there is some tough daysahead, but there's also some
brighter days ahead too, and ifyou can deal with one and focus
on the other, you'll get throughit.
Tom Mueller (28:34):
Brendan, one personal question for you from
my perspective, because my wifeand I visited Christ Church in
2017, and just a family vacationand we noticed in the Central
Business District there are lotsof containers the shipping
containers stacked up alongsidebuildings there and it looked
(28:57):
like they were there keeping thestructures up or what was.
Can you tell me what the theorywas or what was happening with
all those boxes?
Brenden Winder (29:08):
Yeah, so your instincts are bang on, tom.
Those shipping containers whichare stacked the bottom one is
typically filled up with gravelor some other aggregate to make
it nice and heavy.
Then it's mechanicallyconnected and they have two or
three more on top of it and theidea is that allows the traffic
to move past it safely, becausethose big box structures are
(29:29):
never going to move, but thoseshipping containers then allow
work to go on behind it.
So typically what's happened isthe building behind it has a
facade which is not safe for thepublic to be moving past.
So the shipping containersprotect the public from the
facade to be moving past.
So the shipping containersprotect the public from the
facade and the shippingcontainers also allow work to go
(29:50):
on behind the facade so thatthat can be repaired or
demolished or made safe orwhatever needs to happen in
behind it to allow some of theheritage aspects of the city to
be retained as well.
So you might have also noticedwhile you're here too, we use a
number of shipping containers tomake a retail mall in the CBD,
because that could be done veryquickly, and that's happened in
a few places on a smaller scalearound the world.
We had a big container mallhere in Christchurch.
(30:12):
There was dozens of them and itwas so popular that it became a
cruise ship sort of tourismattraction.
And it became in fact sopopular when the time came to
remove them people were sayingactually leave them there.
So a really good sign thatrecovery is going well is when
the temporary measures become sopopular and so well used that
people want to hold on to them.
(30:32):
They've gone now and we're backinto a normal retail
environment, but those shippingcontainers were a really useful
part of our early recoveryarrangements.
Tom Mueller (30:41):
Fascinating.
I remember seeing a number ofbusinesses operating out of
containers while we were there,mostly small coffee shops or
something small retail like that, but it was very sort of
creative way to get things backopen quickly.
Brandon, anything else youwanted to mention as part of
this conversation with us today?
Brenden Winder (31:02):
Yeah, probably the final thing for me is, just
as a responder, we get reminded,but it's very easy to lose
sight of.
It is these big emergencyresponses aren't about buildings
, they aren't aboutinfrastructure, they aren't
about power and water, they'reabout people, and keeping the
community at the centre ofresponse is professionally the
(31:25):
right thing to do, but ethicallyand morally the right thing to
do as well.
And one thing the team and Ihave done here in Christchurch
is we've created a persona, andit sounds a little bit silly but
it's been very effective for us.
We have designed a person inour team.
They're made up, but they havea life and they have a name and
they have friends and they havea job and they have a seat at
(31:45):
our table.
So when we're sitting down anddoing our emergency management
work, we reference this personwho personifies the community
and kind of check in to makesure that the decisions that
we're making make sense and wecheck do they really benefit
this person or is this decisionserving the institution or is it
serving the community?
And if it's serving theinstitution or is it serving the
community and if it's servingthe institution, we'll have
(32:07):
another look at it to say,actually, is this the right?
Is this the right idea?
Because if it's not serving thecommunity, it's probably not
the right decision in the longrun.
So that's a little tip andtrick that we use to do that.
Um, I know other policeagencies and organizations have
the the empty chair, which iskind of also a similar sort of
(32:28):
concept.
We have an empty chair at thetable to signify the community,
because they have to and must beat the center of response.
And if we can all do that, Ithink all our responses will be
a little bit better.
Tom Mueller (32:42):
Gentlemen, I think we'll stop there.
It's been a terrificconversation.
Brendan, Thank you very muchfor taking a little bit of time
to share your experiences withus and with our audience.
Thanks also for your wishes forthe folks of Los Angeles and
your advice and counsel to themon what's coming and what to
expect going forward.
Brenden Winder (33:02):
No problem.
Thank you, mark.
Thank you, tom, it's been areal pleasure.
Thank you.
Tom Mueller (33:06):
And that's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
If you like what you're hearing, please like and subscribe to
the podcast and also tell yourfriends about us as well, and
we'll see you again soon.
Marc Mullen (33:25):
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com