The Management of Portable Toilets in the Eastern Suburbs of Christchurch after the February 22, 2011 Earthquake. (2011)

Type of Content
Journal ArticlePublisher
University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources EngineeringCollections
Abstract
The extent of liquefaction in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch (Aranui, Bexley, Avonside, Avonhead and Dallington) from the February 22 2011 Earthquake resulted in extensive damage to in-ground waste water pipe systems. This caused a huge demand for portable toilets (or port-a-loos) and companies were importing them from outside Canterbury and in some instances from Australia. However, because they were deemed “assets of importance” under legislation, their allocation had to be coordinated by Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM). Consequently, companies supplying them had to ignore requests from residents, businesses and rest homes; and commitments to large events outside of the city such as the Hamilton 400 V8 Supercars and the Pasifika Festival in Auckland were impacted. Frustrations started to show as neighbourhoods questioned the equity of the port-a-loos distribution. The Prime Minister was reported as reassuring citizens in the eastern suburbs in the first week of March that1 “a report about the distribution of port-a-loos and chemical toilets shows allocation has been fair. Key said he has asked Civil Defence about the distribution process and where the toilets been sent. He said there aren’t enough for the scale of the event but that is quickly being rectified and the need for toilets is being reassessed all the time.” Nonetheless, there still remained a deep sense of frustration and exclusion over the equity of the port-a-loos distribution. This study took the simple approach of mapping where those port-a-loos were on 11-12 March for several areas in the eastern suburbs and this suggested that their distribution was not equitable and was not well done. It reviews the predictive tools available for estimating damage to waste water pipes and asks the question could this situation have been better planned so that pot-a-loo locations could have been better prioritised? And finally it reviews the integral roles of communication and monitoring as part of disaster management strategy. The impression from this study is that other New Zealand urban centres could or would also be at risk and that work is need to developed more rational management approaches for disaster planning.
Citation
Potangaroa, R., Wilkinson, S., Zare, M., Steinfort, P. (2011) The Management of Portable Toilets in the Eastern Suburbs of Christchurch after the February 22, 2011 Earthquake.. Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 2 (Special Issue - A Focus on the Canterbury Earth, pp. 39-48.This citation is automatically generated and may be unreliable. Use as a guide only.
ANZSRC Fields of Research
09 - Engineering::0905 - Civil Engineering::090599 - Civil Engineering not elsewhere classified40 - Engineering::4005 - Civil engineering::400508 - Infrastructure engineering and asset management
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Lifelines Performance and Management following the 22 February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake, New Zealand: Highlights of Resilience
Giovinazzi, S.; Wilson, T.M.; Davis, C.; Bristow, D.; Gallagher, M.; Schofield, A.; Villemure, M.; Eidinger, J.; Tang, A. (University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources EngineeringUniversity of Canterbury. Geological Sciences, 2011)A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Christchurch at 12:51pm on Tuesday 22 February 2011. The earthquake caused 182 fatalities, a large number of injuries, and resulted in widespread damage to the built environment, ... -
Performance of horizontal infrastructure in Christchurch city through the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence
Cubrinovski, M.; Hughes, M.; Bradley, Brendon; Noonan, J.; Hopkins, R.; McNeill, S.; English, G. (University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, 2014)This is an interim report from the research study performed within the NHRP Research Project “Impacts of soil liquefaction on land, buildings and buried pipe networks: geotechnical evaluation and design, Project 3: Seismic ... -
"Recovery of Lifelines" following the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake: Successes and issues
Giovinazzi, S.; Wilson, T.M. (University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources EngineeringUniversity of Canterbury. Geological Sciences, 2012)The devastating magnitude M6.3 earthquake, that struck the city of Christchurch at 12:51pm on Tuesday 22 February 2011, caused widespread damage to the lifeline systems. Following the event, the Natural Hazard Research ...