A new Emergency Website for Manawatū-Whanganui

Client

Tairāwhiti Emergency Management

Services

Design
Web Development
Hosting
Umbraco CMS

Visit

www.tairawhitiem.govt.nz

Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Groups need digital channels that work every day of the year, but can also perform under extreme pressure during an emergency response.

During an event, the public needs fast, clear, mobile-friendly information, and Public Information Management teams need a website they can update confidently, quickly, and safely, often with staff working long hours and sometimes with support from other regions. Tairāwhiti Emergency Management wanted to replace emergency management content previously housed on the Gisborne District Council website with a dedicated, purpose-built emergency management site, Tairāwhiti Emergency Management: Official Emergency Alerts and Updates.

The new Tairāwhiti Emergency Management site launched in early 2025. Before this, Tairāwhiti residents had nowhere dedicated to turn to in an emergency just a patchwork of council pages and national alerts. Now they have one place built specifically for their region, their hazards, and their communities.

The challenge

Tairāwhiti needed a dedicated emergency management website that could be stood up quickly, given that time was a key constraint, and that was easy to update during an incident, including when operating in "response mode." The site needed to provide a consistent experience with other New Zealand CDEM websites to reduce confusion for the public, while being accessible and mobile-friendly, recognising that many users would be on phones during an emergency. It also needed to scale securely to very high peak traffic during fast-moving events, then scale back down outside response periods, and allow the team to migrate and rehouse existing content from the GDC web environment into a fit-for-purpose structure.

Our approach

To deliver in two months, we intentionally leaned on proven components and patterns from our previous emergency management work, specifically using the Taranaki Emergency Management site as the baseline. The speed came from reuse of the full system, not just visual design, including templates and content blocks already proven with the public in real-world use, a familiar information architecture for "Get Ready" and hazard content, and established response-mode functionality that allows the site to shift behaviour and layout during an incident. It also drew on a repeatable hosting pattern designed for emergency management traffic profiles and a training and handover approach designed for the realities of CDEM communications teams. This approach also supports a wider sector goal of improving consistency across CDEM websites, so that people moving between regions, or supporting remotely, can find and publish information with less friction.

The solution

We delivered a full TEM website using Umbraco, chosen for its intuitive editing experience, flexibility, and suitability for structured content and reusable components. This included full CDEM Template implementation, including response mode. Tairāwhiti received the complete template set and core functionality, including a homepage with key campaign and preparedness blocks such as risks and "stay informed" messaging, navigation and footer patterns consistent with other EM sites, hazards templates to present hazard guidance clearly and consistently, Get Ready templates for household and community preparedness content, news and article publishing for updates outside and during events, alert banner capability for high-priority notifications, a contact page and form, and site-wide search.

Purpose built emergency management website (Umbraco)

We delivered a full TEM website using Umbraco, chosen for its intuitive editing experience, flexibility, and suitability for structured content and reusable components.

Standard content pages for flexible content needs

The new site includes standard content pages for flexible content needs, along with Response Mode functionality live at launch, enabling the site to shift into an incident-ready state with dedicated response templates. It also integrates Esri and ArcGIS mapping, reusing the existing approach from the GDC environment, and surfaces a Facebook feed to support timely updates and reinforce official channels. Content was migrated from the previous GDC-hosted emergency management pages into the new site structure, rather than starting from scratch.

Hosting built for emergency demand

TEM is hosted on Effect’s tailor-made emergency management hosting offering, designed to remain secure and stable during sudden traffic spikes typical in major events supporting the “scale up/scale down” reality of emergency communications.

Results

Tairāwhiti Emergency Management now has a dedicated website that was stood up in two months and went live in January 2025. It is easier to update during an incident, with Response Mode available immediately, and presents information in a way that is consistent with other CDEM websites. The site delivers a strong mobile experience, critical for public access during emergencies, and is built to scale for peak traffic during major events, while remaining secure and manageable day-to-day.

Our other work in this sector