Editorial: Decade on and still no sirens

Tauranga City Council has now placed a tsunami siren project on the backburner. Photo / NZME.

It is hard to believe it is 10 years since the Boxing Day tsunami. Ten years since waves up to 30m high crashed over Southeast Asia, killing more than 230,000 people in several countries. Ten years since the word tsunami became part of our modern-day language, and our every-day fear.

The tsunami followed an underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean just after 1am on Boxing Day 2004.

It wasn't a one-off phenomenon as the Japan tsunami in 2011 proved.

Those tsunamis reinforced the message that New Zealanders could be at risk for future similar events.

While this should not mean we be paralysed with fear, it should mean we are prepared, especially in coastal populations such as us here in the Bay of Plenty. It beggars belief that on Boxing Day 2014 our Bay beaches still do not have a clear tsunami warning system. Or if they do, no one is telling us about it.

In New Zealand, territorial local authorities are responsible for planning and civil defence.

This year we reported that the Tauranga City Council has an evacuation map for vulnerable, low-lying suburbs using worst-case predictions of a tsunami hitting Papamoa and Mount Maunganui.

Council emergency management spokesman Paul Baunton has said data showed people could survive a 14-metre tsunami so long as they responded quickly to the warning signs.

What warning signs? How much should the earth move before we panic? Great to have evacuation strategies but we still have to know when to evacuate.

During my time at this paper I have read about a range of alert systems mooted in the Bay.

But Tauranga City Council has now placed a tsunami siren project on the backburner. This should not mean sirens are off the agenda. Councils are responsible for warning communities as well as local plans. Councillor Steve Morris - campaigned on this point.

Yesterday we revealed the five contenders for the vacant Mount Maunganui/Papamoa seat on Tauranga City Council.

I would be interested to hear these candidates' views on tsunami sirens. Ten years is a long time to be waiting.