The 'Tawa Civil Defence Light Rescue Unit' was established in 1971 by a group of concerned local residents from the northern Wellington suburb of Tawa. The main aim of this unit was to provide members of the local community with the skills to rescue those who become trapped in buildings (specifcally timber framed residential buildings as common in the suburb) as a result of an earthquake.

The unit joined the network of Volunteer Civil Defence Rescue Teams throughout New Zealand and has been involved in their development both nationally and locally ever since.

In December 1976 the unit was called out to assist in the Hutt Valley floods. In addition to the flooding deployment, an ongoing highlight in the team’s history has been its continued involvement in regional and national exercises.

In 1988 the team came under the control of what is now the Wellington City Council Emergency Management Office (WEMO) and its role expanded to include Community Emergency Centre services. When WEMO withdrew support for rescue teams in 1995, the team continued to operate as a community funded rescue squad. It was one of the very few local rescue teams to survive the nineties, a decade that saw the number of CDC and rescue volunteers in Wellington City drop from more than 3,000 to less than 200.

When WEMO reactivated local rescue teams in 2001 to provide Wellington City with additional rescue resources in the event of any major emergency, the team returned to the control of WEMO, becoming
'WCC Tawa Rescue' and began working towards registration as an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Response Team.

For Further information please email the Team Manager here :