Cyclone Gabrielle

The Team from Eastern District Police

Police continue to pour staff and resources into the Eastern District to assist local staff responding to Cyclone Gabrielle.

In addition to approximately 100 extra staff, Police have deployed the Police Air Support Unit (known as Eagle helicopter) along with 12 4x4 utes and 10 other Police vehicles.

Police SAR teams are working to determine which homes have not yet been assessed and who is still cut off in remote areas of the East Coast.

Police staff are also assisting health teams to conduct welfare checks on people with acute needs.

Police have set up a specialist team to reconcile reports of uncontactable people in Cyclone Gabrielle with those who have reported themselves safe.

This includes cross referencing with people reported safe through evacuation centres, and in person reports to Police stations.

There have been 80 Police staff members working on this today, and this number will extend to 100 in the next few days.

The priority for Police is to filter out duplicate reports made of uncontactable people, reconcile those reports with those who have reported themselves as safe, and prioritise this information for District staff on the ground.

This will help Police staff and other agencies identify those most in need of a welfare check.

Communications in areas most affected by Cyclone Gabrielle are slowly coming back on, and we are urging people who have not yet reported themselves as safe to do so as soon as possible via the Registering I’m Alive online form, here forms.police.govt.nz...

Anyone who has not yet been able to contact someone following the cyclone is also encouraged to make a Person Inquired For report, here forms.police.govt.nz...

People who have now been in touch with someone previously reported uncontactable are now urged to update their report via the same link, so we can prioritise those who need the most urgent checks.