NZ Police CommCens Alert 23:00 10-07-2007 Auckland City

Location of incident: Police Northern Communication Centre

Incident Type: Media Release

Record calls to Police Emergency Centre during weather bomb

The heavy rain in Northland and strong winds in Auckland caused record numbers of calls to the Northern Communication Centre on Tuesday evening. More than 2500 calls were made in a ten hour period, with nearly 1000 being emergency calls.

Superintendent Allan Boreham, said 'This is the highest number of calls in a late shift period the centre has received, higher than on New Years Eve or Guy Fawkes.'

Normally on a Tuesday late shift we might expect 540 emergency calls and 750 other calls, so tonight was almost double that. Most of the calls were for flood or storm related events with road blockages, trees and power lines down, vehicles trapped in floods and people in danger.

Despite the high call load, all the emergency calls and nearly 90% of the other calls were answered promptly. The communicators and dispatchers did a remarkable job across this period, answering 89% of the emergency calls in 10 seconds or better.

'This is the best result we have achieved in a major storm and was a testament to the skill of our staff and the fact many volunteered to stay on until the worst was over', said Mr Boreham.

ENDS

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