Magnitude 8.0 Scenario

AF8 Cascading
Impact Simulator

Mana Tangata: Power of Leadership Through the People

SAFER Framework · CIMS 3rd Edition

A rehearsal space for decision-making under pressure. Eight roles live through the same magnitude 8 rupture of the Alpine Fault from very different seats — a national Controller, a school principal, a lone adult with a van full of children — each tracking the things that role actually has to hold.

There are no wrong answers, nobody is watching, and nothing is recorded — it all stays in your browser. Work a scenario through to the end and you get a debrief on the calls you made and what the doctrine suggests.

Choose a role. Each puts you somewhere different in the same rupture.

Before you start

Guiding Principles

Every scenario gives you four options and no good ones. You are not being asked to find a right answer — you are being asked to make a defensible call and be able to say why. These ten principles are what the scenarios actually reward, drawn from the teaching notes behind all 156 decisions in the simulator.

You will not be able to pattern-match your way through. The options are shuffled every session, so there is no letter that is usually right, and the longest option is not the best one. You have to read them.

The ten principles

  1. Life safety outranks everything else

    Above assets, revenue, restoration speed, reputation, political pressure and the demands of whoever is in front of you. When an option trades a life-safety risk for any other kind of gain, it is almost always the wrong one.

    Trap An option that sounds responsible — protecting stock, keeping a promise, restoring service faster — but quietly accepts a risk to someone's life.

  2. Allocate scarce things by need and consequence — never by status, volume or money

    The loudest caller, the most powerful stakeholder, the highest bidder and the most sympathetic case are all the wrong basis. Allocate by who is most exposed and what happens if you do not.

    Trap The option that resolves the argument you are currently having, rather than the need that is largest.

  3. Be proportionate — scope the response to the actual need

    Match the size of the intervention to the size of the problem. A citywide curfew where dedicated corridors would do, or full emergency powers where a targeted declaration covers it, costs you trust you will need later.

    Trap Reaching for the biggest available power because it is available.

  4. Say the rule out loud, then apply it consistently

    Rationing by need is right, but only if people know the rule. A stated, published criterion applied the same way to everyone survives scrutiny. A quiet decision that happens to be correct does not.

    Trap Deciding quietly to avoid an argument. It reads as favouritism later, even when the call was right.

  5. Keep the record — an accurate count, a written log, every handover

    The count of people you are responsible for is the one thing you can guarantee and the first thing anyone will ask. Write down what you did, when, and on whose authority. A written deterioration record is what gets someone prioritised when help arrives.

    Trap Acting first and intending to write it up later. Under load, later does not come.

  6. Act in time on incomplete information — label it provisional, set a review point

    Waiting for confirmation is the classic failure. Give the provisional answer, say clearly that it is provisional, state what would change it, and set a time to revisit. Being usefully approximate beats being accurately late.

    Trap The cautious-sounding option that waits for a full assessment. People are cold, trapped or deteriorating while you optimise.

  7. Stay inside your role, training and mandate — escalate rather than improvise

    Do what you are trained and authorised to do, then hand on. A first-aid certificate means stabilise, protect, monitor and escalate — not improvise. Some decisions are genuinely not yours to make, and taking them anyway is the error.

    Trap Feeling responsible for everything and therefore deciding everything, including the parts above your authority.

  8. Communicate so the person who has to act can act

    Give a decision-ready statement, not raw data and not bare reassurance. Reach every audience, not just the ones your default channel happens to serve. Tell everyone who is planning against an old assumption the moment it changes. Correct a damaging error fast, in the channel where it is spreading.

    Trap Technically accurate information that the person receiving it cannot act on.

  9. Protect your own people — fatigue and unsafe work are hazards, not inconveniences

    Stand down genuinely unsafe work; no restoration is worth a life. Enforce rest and rotation, because exhausted people make the errors. Protect the stop-work right of the person standing at the hazard. Your people must be able to trust that you will come for them.

    Trap “Calculated risk” pressure from someone who is not standing where the hazard is.

  10. Verify before you commit — assess the option, check the claim, confirm the identity

    Assess a shelter before moving people into it. Treat unverified footage as a lead to follow, never as evidence to publish. Do not adopt the conclusion of the party with the largest interest in it. No verification, no release — and record the handover.

    Trap Confident information from a plausible source under time pressure. Confidence is not verification.

Four traps worth naming

Doing nothing because no option is good

Every scenario is built so that all four options cost something. Declining to choose is itself a choice, and usually the worst-scoring one.

Splitting your effort so nobody gets enough

Refusing to prioritise between two genuine needs often serves neither. Split deliberately and say the split, or choose — but do not split to avoid choosing.

Protecting yourself rather than them

Options that reduce your personal exposure — deferring, consulting, waiting for someone senior — can look prudent while costing the people you are responsible for.

Following your instinct over your duty

The pull toward your own child, your own staff, the person in front of you, is real and is not the same as the greatest need. Both matter; only one is the basis for the decision.

How you are scored

Each option moves an Effectiveness score and a set of role-specific meters — child safety, public trust, crew safety, clinical capacity, and so on. The change appears beside the number as it happens and again as a card in the feed, so you can see what each decision cost.

At the end you get a debrief: every decision you made, what the doctrine suggests, and why. Turn on Facilitator Mode on the home page to see the teaching notes, references and discussion prompts during the run as well.

Nothing is recorded and nobody is watching. The score exists to shape your debrief, not to grade you.

H+00:00 IMMEDIATE RESPONSE
R3 ▲
Lives at Risk: ~45,000
Comms: Degraded
Power: 15% SI
Roads: Severed W
ECCs Active: 4/6
Effectiveness: 72%
Response Metrics
CDEM Group Status
CanterburyECC Active
West CoastIsolated
OtagoPartial
SouthlandECC Active
Nelson-TasmanPartial
MarlboroughECC Active
Partner Agencies
NZ PoliceActive
FENZ / USARDeploying
NZDFMobilising
St JohnActive
DHBsStressed
NCMCConfirming
Lifeline Utilities
ElectricitySI Blackout
TelecomsSeverely Degraded
WaterCompromised
WastewaterFailed (WC)
FuelLimited
FMCGDisrupted
Transport
Alpine PassesImpassable
SH6 SouthBlocked
SH1 East CoastDisrupted
Rail (WC)Destroyed
Christchurch APAssessing
Queenstown APAssessing
Hokitika APDamaged
Lyttelton PortOperational
Greymouth PortDestroyed
Cascading Hazards
🔁 Aftershocks Extreme
⛰️ Landslide Dams High
🌊 Lake Tsunami Moderate
💧 Liquefaction High
🌧️ Weather Risk Moderate
🏗️ Structural Collapse High
Response Resources
Helicopters
USAR Teams
Medical Teams
Fuel Reserves
Shelter Capacity