Ngā mihi. Over the past couple of days, Waikato, Counties Manukau and Northland staff have been working flat out to keep the public safe as devastating rainfall and floods hit their districts.
As always in these kinds of emergencies, our staff are working closely with our partner agencies, including Fire, Civil Defence, Defence and local authorities. There have been numerous examples of our people going above and beyond the call of duty during what is a very challenging time for their communities.
Key tasks have included evacuating people from homes threatened by floodwaters, as well as cordoning unsafe roads and areas and providing reassurance to worried locals.
The close call involving two officers whose car was caught in rapidly rising waters near Kawakawa Bay in South Auckland on Wednesday showed the hazards faced by emergency workers on the ground.
Counties Manukau Police also played a key role in the evacuation of 230 children and 30 adults from two campsites in the Hunua Ranges.
Although these types of events cause significant damage and upheaval, it’s always encouraging to see how readily everyone pitches in to help one another. We also saw this with the responses to the Christchurch fires last month and last year’s Kaikoura earthquake.
As I write, atrocious weather continues to lash the region and scores of our people are out in the wet and wild conditions doing what they do best – keeping people safe. My thanks and congratulations to all Police staff for the huge effort they’re all putting in.
Celebrating our diversity
Wednesday was International Women’s Day, a great opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the important role women play in New Zealand Police.
Throughout the day, we released a range of social media content showcasing some of the awesome people in our team, including Constable Mandeep Kaur, who describes how she followed her dream to join Police in a short video on our Facebook page.
On that note, I was very pleased to see that record numbers of people applied to join Police in the first two months of this year and that there was a 61 percent increase in the number of visits to newcops by women. The site has everything people need to know about joining Police, so if you know someone who might be interested, I encourage you to direct them to it.
That's all for now. Until next time, stay safe.
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