Tsunami escape plans for Bay by 2015

Tauranga City Council plans to have tsunami evacuation routes sign posted for all of Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Papamoa by May 2015.

Emergency management and safety manager Paul Baunton said the agencies working together on tsunami evacuation route planning were close to identifing safe zones for the entire coast.

The first evacuation route signs were installed at the Mount in December 2013 in collaboration with Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, NZ Transport Agency, NZ Police, NZ Fire, and the District Health Board.

Evacuation routes for the rest of the city will be progressively sign posted this year, starting with the inner harbour areas in May, parts of Mount Maunganui and Papamoa in October and finishing with the remaining sections of Papamoa in 2015.

The aim of each evacuation route is to direct people to a tsunami safe zone that can be reached on foot within 40 minutes.

Mr Baunton said a big lesson from the 2011 tsunami in Japan was that evacuation in cars led to major traffic jams, and this put people at risk. "The message is not to use vehicles if at all possible. Walking, running or using bicycles are the recommended options.

"It is our job to make sure that people actually have a safe place to go when they evacuate.

We are working to identify safe zones that pedestrians can reach within 40 minutes from any point along the coast - including the flattest stretches of Papamoa."

Due to its topography and distance from the Papamoa foothills, it has taken more time to accurately identify safe zones for Papamoa, particularly for the area between Girven Road and Papamoa Beach Road.

Tsunami flood modelling done by Tonkin & Taylor includes work on water velocity to calculate how deep and fast a body of water can get before it becomes life threatening.

This information will reveal where the lower risk parts of Papamoa are - areas of land that are predicted to be innundated by tsunami waters but with a reduced threat to life.

"The first priority will be to direct people from the life threatening areas to the areas of reduced risk, and from there to the dry safe zones," Mr Baunton said.