SkyCity Auckland Convention Centre fire scene was like Apocalypse Now, says CEO
Saturday, 26 October 2019
Mass evacuation and the 'eerie' ghost town it left behind - SkyCity CEO Graeme Stephens recounts the first 24 hours of the New Zealand International Convention Centre fire.
BILLOWING SMOKE CLOUDS
I was with Michael Ahearne, our chief operating officer, and we got a message from one of our senior managers that there was a fire at the convention centre.
We were in Federal House, on Federal St, and as I got out onto the street and looked up, there were billowing clouds of black smoke coming over. We walked around the block to see police arriving and clearly a big fire. Our crisis management process requires me to inform our chairman and I looked at the time of that text on Friday and at 1.20pm I text Rob Campbell to say 'Fire at NZICC'. We immediately triggered the rest of the crisis management, which is to get everyone together in the boardroom at Federal House. It took probably 30 minutes or so.
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While that was happening, I was on the pavement outside the convention centre with the Fletcher workers milling around. My first thoughts were to make sure they were safe. There were no senior Fletcher personnel visible — that I knew of at least — so I contacted Peter Reidy, who is the CEO of Fletcher Construction. I said: 'There's a big fire, it looks as if your workers are all safe.' They weren't looking panicked, they were on the pavement on Hobson opposite and there didn't seem to be a sense of panic amongst them. It sort of indicated things were all OK from a people point of view.
When we gathered to commence our crisis management process, which was in place until Friday, in that first meeting we were getting first reports from emergency services, which at that point indicated no concern for our existing precinct. They were focused on setting up and trying to contain the fire on the convention centre.
I went up the Sky Tower to have a look down and try and assess personally what the fire looked like. At that stage the far side of the roof from our existing precinct in one corner there was lots of smoke, but when it cleared there wasn't a lot of fire — a fairly small area seemed to be burning. There was at that stage some hope it would be contained to that.
The debate at the crisis meeting became is it or isn't it going to be put out? Emergency services were indicating there was no need to do anything at that point on our main site. As the fire continued to burn and smoke started to increasingly descend into our existing precinct, we started to question whether we should or shouldn't evacuate. The message consistently from emergency services was there was no problem with the quality of the fire and the dilemma was: Is this a fire they're going to put out and we've evacuated a whole property for nothing, or do we take a path of caution and live with being overly conservative and find we've evolved into a proper crisis?
I'm a bit hazy on time, but I would have thought probably about 3pm we decided to trigger an orderly evacuation and close down, particularly where the large volumes of people were —customers and staff — in the casino and where closure is not such a simple thing. It's not getting up from your desk in an office building and walking out. To close down a casino takes some time and we thought we'd start there.
PATH OF CAUTION
We got the staff and customers out, got them down to street level. Air quality was worse outside than it had been inside. Where we'd normally congregate at the base of the Sky Tower, that really wasn't an option. We had evacuated the Sky Tower first. We had a lot of people, mostly staff around. 1250 staff were on site at the time. Our customers largely visit us by vehicle and they were able to get in their vehicles and exit. We got mostly staff off Federal St and to the far end of the convention centre which is the atrium on Albert St. That was a good holding pattern, we could give them water and start a process there where we needed to get them off site. We started by offering taxis, but the problem became Albert St is largely closed due to the City Rail Link and Auckland was in gridlock by then and it was just a nightmare of traffic. Quite a few of our staff made the decision to walk to public transport.
They were so well received and looked after. It was just one of so many touch points with Auckland which has been so heartwarming. The fire was barely hours-old and Auckland was already reacting.
Having dealt with the casino, the fairly simultaneous move straight after was to start shutting down the restaurants and hotels.
It wasn't as simple in the sense of we had people staying with us who had nowhere else to stay. We started looking at alternative accommodation and hotel rooms. Both of our hotels were full, 500 to 600 people on precinct we were trying to accommodate. Fortunately, there was enough hotel supply in Auckland we could ultimately accommodate them all. We were getting ready to activate a plan where our staff would also take guests home — I was calling it Operation Dunkirk. If we didn't have enough hotel accommodation available, if each of us took a guest home that would close the gap and were busy trying to figure out that gap right up until 7.30pm.
We started moving hotel guests out as the last phase of the evacuation. I would say our guests were very understanding it was not a situation of our making, we were managing as best we could. We kept our guests supplied with water and food.
I didn't have a face mask on Tuesday and I finally left at about 9pm or 10pm. There was nothing further for me to do. Before I left, some pizzas arrived — I don't normally eat pizza but I ate quite a bit. I breathed the air all the way through on Tuesday. It was uncomfortable, but never at a point where I couldn't deal with it. It was a really weird atmosphere in the place. Just empty.
SKYCITY 'LIKE APOCALYPSE NOW'
Waking up on Wednesday, there was half a hope the fire had been put out. But we woke up to the news the fire was still blazing, worse than on Tuesday. Wednesday for me is a day of smoke and an empty, haunted, Apocalypse Now-type precinct. It was literally like walking into a ghost town. It was a really eerie feeling. It was a weirdly, eerie place. Wednesday for me is also a day of media press conferences, a visit from the prime minister, and within all of that trying to find the time to walk through the property and assess the damage.
This included getting down to level four to assess the damage where the staff's cars were parked. Water levels were starting to rise and we sloshed our way down to it and tried to get some pumps in there. It was rising and I was hopeful with a few pumps we could contain it. At that point we could have salvaged the vehicles but staff were now off-site with their car keys. Salvaging would have meant bringing them up a level, not exiting the building. But there was too much water coming in.
With the full benefit of hindsight, at the high level I certainly wouldn't change any decisions but the one thing I would have liked was to get those cars out. But if that's the only lingering regret on action which might have happened, well that's OK, money fixes that problem. The most important thing is no injuries.