Technical Activities : Working Party on Integrated Planning for Earthquake Response

Convenor: David Brunsdon, Kestrel Group

There is always a strong demand for experienced earthquake engineers and related technical personnel to assist at a community level immediately after a significant earthquake. Over the past decade, the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering has been seeking to clarify the role of professional engineers and related technical personnel following such an event affecting an urban area in New Zealand.

NZSEE was instrumental in setting up the Professional Engineers and Emergency Management (PEEM) Task Force in 2004. PEEM is led by John Gardiner of IPENZ, with representation from the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and ACENZ in addition to the Society. PEEM has established terms of reference to address the wider issue of developing mechanisms to enhance the interface between professional engineers of all disciplines and emergency management agencies.

Activities include developing and promoting the Emergency List of Engineers and promoting the need for critical facilities operators to have Priority Response Agreements with professional engineers.

The NZSEE Working Party is now focusing on earthquake-oriented issues such as the Building Safety Evaluation process. The Society's 1998 Guidelines on this are currently being reviewed to bring them into line with the CDEM Act 2002 and Building Act 2004, along with the co-ordination of a training package.

The Working Party's annual report (128K PDF) presented in March 2004 provides more background on the activities of both the Working Party and PEEM.