Turoa defends evac plans

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 477, 16 March 1993, Page 1

Turoa defends evac plans

Turpa has a civil defence emergency plan and does carry out exercises to test it; Turoa Ski Resort general manager Angus Grimwade told the Bulletin yesterday. He was answering criticism levelled at Turoa at the Ruapehu District Council's civil defence subcommittee meeting last week. Civil defence controller Karen Ngati told the committee that Turoa had not forwarded their updated evacuation plan to the council. The plan would be forwarded on completion, said Mrs Ngati. "Contacts have been made with the manager... in relation to having an exercise on the Turoa Ski Field to test their plan," said Mrs Ngati in her report. "The manager felt that it was not necessary to run an exercise as their plan was tested on a day-to-day basis through the winter months."

cises of their plan behind the scenes. "There is no need to test the patience of the public." He said if the company did not have safe practices in place they would not retain their licence from the Department of Conservation to operate. "DoC has a copy of our present evacuation plan and they are helping us with the new one, and they have not cxpressed any concem at it." Turn to page 2

Turoa's civil defence plans

From page 1 Thcre wcre major differences betwcen Turoa and Whakapapa in regard to civil defence emergency threat. Whakapapa is in the path of potential lahars, while the

threat to Turoa is minimal, he said. The ski field's responsibility was to evacuate people to the top of the Ohakune Mountain Road and from thcre it is the council's

responsibility. "Wc haven't becn shown an evacuation plan for the road yet, but once the council has one, we'll incorporate in into our plan." (An evacuation plan for Mt Ruapchu

was included in the subcommittee's agenda). Mr Grimwade said if the council had exercises on different scenarios they would like Turoa to run, the ski field would be happy to co-operate.