PRINZ members work with NZ Defence force in Samoa
By Jeremy Seed
I am a PR Officer (PRO) in the Territorial Force (TF) of the New Zealand Army. The role of the TF is to provide supplementary manpower to the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) as and when it is needed, which is often at short notice, such as when the tsunami hit Samoa earlier this month.
I was called on Saturday, October 3 at midday and on a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Boeing 757 flight to Samoa at 2am the next morning.
The tsunami had hit the south cost of the main island of Upolo but the Apia area was completely unaffected. The only signs of anything untoward at Faleolo Airport when we arrived were the military planes on the runway.
The first RNZAF plane into Samoa had been carrying my colleague, and fellow PRO (and PRINZ member) Kavae Tamariki who is normally the RNZAF PRO based in Wellington. Kavae was accompanied by NZDF photographer Carl Booty and together they had been run ragged by the demands of New Zealand and international media who had descended on Samoa since the previous Thursday when the tsunami struck.
The NZDF had deployed two Air Force helicopters, a Navy dive team, and Army medics and engineers. There were also NZDF specialists like environmental health experts working with the Samoan Government to assist where needed.
Because Samoa was so close to New Zealand and regular air services were operating, media had easy access to the country. Apia had been unaffected and Upolo is easy to get around. Media and most aid organisations were based in Apia and travelled to the disaster area every day to cover the tragedy and the relief work.
Operating the only two helicopters flying in the country and being at the sharp end of aid distribution meant the NZDF team were an obvious target for media attention. Being at the forefront of New Zealand efforts to deliver assistance also meant that Kavae’s phone did not stop ringing.
A typical day consisted of a morning briefing with key NZDF staff at the New Zealand High Commission in Apia where they had established a headquarters. Once we knew what was happening that day, Kavae would advise the journalists where the main NZDF effort was focused and manage queries about getting pictures and interviews. This was typically done as we travelled across the island to the impacted areas.
My primary role was to produce what the NZDF call hometowners. These are stories about individual members of the NZDF targeted at the newspapers in their home towns. In the course of the day as we travelled the island, I would use my i-phone to record interviews with NZDF personnel as they went about their jobs. I had a standard list of questions and the production of the stories is fairly formulaic. Once I had the interview, Carl would take a photo of the person at work and that evening I would transcribe the interview and type up a one page story, adding a generic boilerplate about the NZDF effort in Samoa to the end of the story. These stories and the images were sent to local papers by the Wellington based NZDF PR team.
We also had some success as a quasi media team. Carl would use a small digital video camera and I would ask the questions as we interviewed NZDF personnel about their work. TV3 Samoa had no camera teams available to travel to the south coast so we gave the raw footage to their production team who edited it and used it in their nightly bulletins.
The Hometowner stories are a fantastic way to provide communities throughout New Zealand with an overview of what NZDF personnel are doing on the ground and to connect with those communities. The hometowners are also fun to write, I really enjoy getting out and meeting people when I am writing them. The morale of the deployed personnel was very high, the medics, engineers, divers and others were all incredibly proud of the work they were doing and pleased to be making such a positive difference for the people of Samoa.
Working in over 30 degree heat, in a disaster area, surrounded by people who have lost everything was challenging. The local phone network was often overloaded and texting became the default method of communication with anyone else in Samoa or back in New Zealand.
It was quite humbling to be in such a situation and not be providing physical assistance. The only time I actually felt I really helped was the day we were on the coast when a tsunami warning was issued and along with my colleagues we went out into the ruins of the village of Poutasi and warned villagers of the alert and told them to move to higher ground.
My time in Samoa ended the day after the majority of New Zealand journalists returned home. They left on the 6am Air New Zealand 767, I boarded an RNZAF Hercules for the five and a half hour flight home accompanied by some members of the Police team, two police dogs, some of the volunteer surgeons, returning NZDF personnel and a helicopter.
We arrived at Whenuapai just before midnight and after clearing customs and MAF, I shuffled out into the darkness to give my wife a hug and get a ride home. Kavae and Carl stayed there for another week and are on their way home now.
It was a fascinating experience. The destruction was stunning and the power of the sea was incredible to witness. The spirit of the Samoan people was phenomenal, and the actions of their government to rapidly restore infrastructure and help their people was impressive. The devastation was appalling and the recovery will take years, but it was phenomenal to have been able to witness it and play a part in telling the story of the New Zealanders who were there making a difference.
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