Over 5-6 November, NEMA hosted a national exercise simulating a severe space weather event to test New Zealand’s readiness to respond to and recover from its potential cascading effects, ensuring robust coordination across agencies and sectors. The scenario for this exercise was based on Daniel Mac Manus’ PhD research and the outputs of the Solar Tsunamis project. Craig Rodger and Daniel attended the exercise in their roles on the Space Weather Science Advisory Panel, along with around 140 other people present over the course of the day in the Beehive “bunker”, and more joining online. Early feedback shows the exercise achieved its goal of improving multi-agency planning for an extreme space weather event.
Media also attended the exercise, and you can read more about it from Stuff and RNZ.
Above: Daniel Mac Manus Daniel Hill (NEMA) providing a Science briefing during the National Coordination Call between the NCMC in Wellington and national Civil Defence organisations.
Below: A scene from the bunker, courtesy of RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
