Larry Williams Drive

Great news for the ski fields. Winter has finally decided to do its thing and snow is dumping.  And the wild and wooly weather arrived in the week we learnt that we are no more ready for a natural disaster today than we were before Cyclone Gabrielle.  A few weeks ago work stopped on the COP project.  COP is Common Operating Platform. It’s a data system that could mean that any agency involved in a disaster can communicate with each other in real time. It’s making sure all the computers and phones can talk to each other.  We need one for all sorts of things - weather events, fire, terrorist attacks, invasions. Everyone needs to be able to access it - Police, Fire, Army, Civil Defence.  And then the whole thing can be coordinated from a local, regional or central position.  Not having a common operating system was cited as the major failure in Gabrielle so this is a big thing. And I was very glad to hear the Prime Minister and Mike talking about it this morning.  After describing the problem, the PM then said y