Tsunami siren ready to raise the alarm

By Frances Morton
If you are on the coast and hear a siren wail, "point your nose inland and start your feet flapping up and down". That's the advice from Western Bay of Plenty District Council manager of emergency management, Barry Low.
The first siren for the tsunami warning system in the Western Bay has now been installed atop one of the new light towers at Baypark.
If triggered by an alert from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, the siren will broadcast a distinct wail warning residents in an 8km radius of an approaching tsunami and urging them to move to higher ground.
It is one of 11 sirens that will cover the coast from Waihi Beach to Pukehina.
The council is currently discussing the possibility of extending the warning system to Coromandel and the East Cape with local authorities in those areas.
The Bay emergency management office, run by Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty District councils, acknowledged that the region was vulnerable to tsunamis caused by earthquakes, volcanoes and under-sea landslides.
Plans to devise a warning system and an evacuation plan were fast-tracked after last year's Boxing Day tsunami which killed about 225,000 people in southeast Asia.
Mr Low hoped the new sirens would be in place by Christmas.
Once the sirens are all installed they will be tested and a public education programme will instruct people how to react in an emergency.
"It's a matter of public awareness. These things will happen in the future and if they do we don't want to be caught with our pants down," Mr Low said.
The warning system and evacuation plan was based on the "most likely" scenario of a 5m-high tsunami.
This would cut all state highways along the coast, swamping Waihi Beach, Mount Maunganui, Papamoa and Maketu.
Mr Low said the Western Bay council was working with police and Transit New Zealand to devise a traffic management plan to direct traffic out of the danger area.