Last week, the Bay was hit by a 4.2 quake only 3km offshore.
Most people felt it because the epicentre was very shallow at only 2km deep. Fortunately, it was a small quake. Any tsunami would have been a mere ripple.
What would have happened if it was say a 6.2 quake?
Let's just put that into perspective. A 4.3 quake has an approximate TNT for seismic energy yield of 43 metric tonnes. A 6.3 tremor - the same size as this year's Christchurch that killed 181 people - is 43 kilitons!
Now that is a massive jump in deadly power.
And that deadly power can spark a huge wall of water that will flatten Papamoa and the Mount.
After all, the recent Fukushima offshore quake was a 6.6 and we know what happened there.
It released a 14m tsunami that has either killed, or left unaccounted for, some 20,000 people.
I am more than happy to acknowledge a close-to-shore quake could trigger a wave that will hit us almost before the sirens sound - when they are erected of course.
But should a quake occur hundreds of kilometres away - which is the most likely scenario, we need to know how to get out of the suburb.
And if you go to the Bay of Plenty Civil defence website you'll be told ... nothing helpful on evacuation.
Fair go guys. Do you have a plan?
What we get from the authorities is this:
Alan Pearce, operations manager for Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty's emergency management office, said that Bay residents should be aware of the dangers of earthquakes.
Duh. Like we don't.
"The Bay of Plenty has always had a history of earthquakes. Let's face it, earthquakes are common in New Zealand," he said.
Yeah, and they happen in ocean areas causing tsunamis too!
Clinton Naude, acting team leader for Civil Defence Group at the regional Bay of Plenty office, said the earthquake should act as a reminder to Bay residents of the importance of being prepared.
"I liken it to driving a motor vehicle. If you have a near miss, you get a fright, you become more alert, more cautious. People should treat these smaller earthquakes as warnings. They're constant reminders."
Okay, if they are a constant reminder, why do we still have nothing to help us get out of our danger suburbs?
Which roads do we use if we are in the east, west, central parts of Papamoa?
Let us know. Put it on the website. Post out maps for us.
What I - and about 35,000 other coastal residents - am saying is just tell us. Your job is to protect us and so far all we get is fabulous surveys about how we've got batteries.
Give us something useful!
***
I'm sure Gisborne is a lovely place but, as this tale will show, it has some scum existing there.
The Gisborne coppers are on the lookout for a guy who robbed a teenage girl - of her orange stand takings.
Fair go, what sort of craven coward does that sort of thing?
Police are looking for the guy, who nicked $100, and describe him as being a tall teenager, fair-skinned, of Maori descent.
You can probably add "with a large yellow stripe down his back" to that description.
***
Oh my lord some people get very touchy about things don't they.
Take the protective mother who wrote to the Northern Advocate moaning about unfair coverage of her son's basketball team.
She reckons the headline Whangarei crushes Rodney was not accurate and added that since when was a 36-13 scoreline "a crushing"?
Well, ma'am, in my book a score almost three times the other team's is not only a crushing, but an absolute belting/thrashing/caning/trouncing/humiliation.
But then I don't play basketball.
richard@richardmoore.com
