Identified safe zones where several thousand people could gather include Blake and Macville parks in Mount Maunganui and yet-to-be-built vertical evacuation structures, such as earthen mounds, in Papamoa. Eight zones have been identified publicly and the other eight are yet to be confirmed.
Residents can expect to receive information about the new evacuation plan by mail next month.
"The flyer we produce in November will be the most important document we do . . . the maximum possible event is a 14m wave when it gets to the coast, based on a rupture of the Kermadec Trench," Mr Baunton told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend.
Mayor Stuart Crosby said the council made the right decision not to use sirens until the national standard came out.
"Our focus is on inundation mapping and evacuation strategies. In terms of notifying, we intend to use a whole range of options that a pending tsunami is coming if we have time. I doubt very much we'll be installing sirens."
Mount Maunganui-Papamoa ward councillor Steve Morris campaigned on the siren issue and told the Bay of Plenty Times last year: "There should be a range of simple measures including sirens to follow."
But Cr Morris now said the priority was working out new evacuation routes and building foot bridges and other structures to help people reach higher ground, before si r ens were reconsidered.
"We're moving at l i ght speed compared to the previous council," he said. "Eight years under the previous council - they put in a foot bridge."
Cr Morris said once evacuation routes were in place next year, the council would consider an alert system.
"It's like if you have a fire, you need to unlock the fire exit, then look at sirens," he said.
Emergency earthworks, signage and bridges could cost $1.8 million over the next five years, he said. The council planned to have tsunami evacuation routes signposted for Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Papamoa by May next year.
Mr Baunton says an emergency management workshop with the council recently produced, ". . . no feedback they wanted to pursue sirens any more".
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.
Papamoa East Evacuation and Road Safety group spokesman Paul Melhuish said his organisation did not have a view on sirens, but members did want signs and another road to flee on foot.
"You need something wide, flat and smooth everyone's gonna get out on," he said.
Civil Defence rolled out new technical standards for tsunami sirens in July. The guide says sirens are just one component within a wider warning system and they "have a number of disadvantages". If used, the guidelines say they must be electronic.
Thames-Coromandel District recently tested mechanical sirens, which emergency planning manager Gary Talbot said failed to comply with ministry standards.
"What we can hope for and is currently being investigated is a national all-hazards warning system that accesses the multitude of social media devices we have available to us."
Emergency officials say it could take the Civil Defence Ministry more than an hour to activate a siren system following an earthquake.
The question remains, though, of what to do if a tsunami produces an earthquake people did not feel.
Age Concern Tauranga general manager Tanya Smith said everyone needed an evacuation plan and emergency supplies.
