Editorial: Fears must be priority

Photo / File

For years, the city council has been trying to come up with some sort of tsunami warning system.

Ideas have been thrown around but they never seem to get off the ground.

With a huge coastline open to incoming trouble, we are all well aware that tsunamis are real possibilities for us in the Western Bay.

On Saturday, this paper reported that 16 tsunami safe zones from Mauao to Papamoa had been identified as part of an important new emergency evacuation plan.

Details of these will be mailed to residents next month.

I know many people who will be studying that information to find out what areas near them have been identified as safe.

Will people pay any attention to this or will they just go to places that they themselves deem to be safe?

In 2011, Tauranga City Council decided to spend up to $1 million on sirens to help alert the 50,000 residents who live along the low-lying coastal strip from Mount Maunganui to Papamoa.

But those warning sirens that ratepayers have already spent $200,000 researching are unlikely, even after nine years of study, and the mayor has all but ruled them out.

Apparently, sirens are not a viable warning method and residents would instead be alerted to a tsunami by a variety of methods - including texts, emails, smart phone applications and media.

But a Bay of Plenty Civil Defence email and text test alert recently failed to reach everyone as planned.

Some people got the message hours after it was sent; others didn't get it at all.

The new evacuation plan advises people to walk to higher ground or head inland within 40 minutes, since emergency officials say the most potentially dangerous tsunami is likely to arrive 50 minutes after a major earthquake.

Time is the only thing that is going to save people in the event of a tsunami being generated near us.

With time and safe evacuation routes, people can seek refuge away from the coast.

This is not one of those things we want to be looking back on asking what could have been done better.

We need a concrete plan now, so we can be as prepared as possible.