The Challenge

In February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle tore through the North Island of New Zealand, triggering a national state of emergency. Hawke’s Bay, home to Hastings District Council (HDC), was among the hardest hit. The cyclone left more than 10,000 people displaced, caused an estimated NZD $13.5 billion in damages, and destroyed vital infrastructure across the region.

HDC was at the centre of the emergency response effort. With communication lines stretched, incoming information from emergency services, the public, and national authorities (including the Beehive’s crisis coordination centre) overwhelmed available systems. The council’s team—already managing evacuations and critical infrastructure—lacked the digital infrastructure to reliably assign roles, track actions, or communicate at scale during the most intense periods of the response.

After the dust settled, HDC knew it needed to transform how it prepared for, and responded to, large-scale disruptions.

The Approach

Fixinc worked closely with HDC to deploy F24, a leading emergency and crisis management platform trusted across Europe and Oceania. Together, we tailored F24 to the council’s structure and risk profile, ensuring it could serve both day-to-day incident needs and region-wide disaster response.

Implementation focused on four critical gaps identified post-cyclone:

• Clear role ownership and task delegation – allowing responsibilities to be automatically assigned and tracked in real time.
• Centralised communications – replacing fragmented phone and email chains with structured, auditable crisis comms tools.
• Digital record keeping – ensuring every action is logged, accessible, and reportable—even if teams are displaced.
• A Localised Common Operating Picture (COP) – helping teams, partners, and stakeholders align decisions using live information.

We also provided onboarding and support to embed F24 across relevant departments and ensure its use would be second nature in future disruptions.

The Outcome

HDC now has a professional-grade digital command centre at its fingertips. With F24, the council can mobilise personnel, assign critical tasks, and issue mass notifications with precision. Crisis management is no longer dependent on static documents or ad hoc phone trees, it’s structured, visible, and digitally resilient.

Perhaps most importantly, Hastings is on its way to building a localised common operating picture, one that will evolve with the region’s risks and help protect its people and infrastructure for years to come.

Fixinc continues to support HDC as both a strategic advisor and technology partner, ensuring that when the next challenge arrives, Hastings will be ready.