Better preparation

Why has New Zealand neglected resilience of homes not connected to urban water and waste systems?

Stuff’s article about homes around Auckland needing emergency portaloos and drinking water simply because the electricity supply is cut is really quite alarming.

With regular predictions of more intense storms, strategies to cope with disruptions as have occurred over the last week should surely, by now, be part of general resilience planning.

Why do modern septic tank systems have such a limited capacity when power disruption occurs? Why isn’t it mandatory for these systems to have a minimum seven days capacity to cope with power disruption?

And why is the water supply to the dwelling dependent on an instant start pressure pump?

For drinking water, those affected homes probably have on site water storage of 20,000+ litres, hopefully 45,000+ litres. But when the power goes off the pump won’t work to deliver water to the tap. Why not insist that such properties use a header tank system with 2000+ litre capacity that can supply gravity fed drinking water when the power goes out?

For those choosing to live unconnected to urban water/waste services, surely the responsibility of local government (regulation) and the home owners is to ensure that they are resilient to a 5+ day power outage.

In the past, rural homes were always resilient. Why has that changed?

LOU BIRD Karori (abridged)