Tsunami alert delay 'not best decision'

A civil defence expert believes the management plan in the event of a tsunami is adequate but its execution could be improved.

Admiral Fred Wilson, a former Chief of Naval Staff who was Auckland City Council's emergency management head until last year, said the system worked according to plan yesterday.

"That all worked. The advice from the [Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii] went, as I understand it, to all the right people in Wellington very promptly, and worked perfectly.

"But the current system is to have some thinking space before you do anything.

"And in the meantime, of course, I heard that people as far away as Georgia in the US, and in South Africa, were ringing relatives in New Zealand saying, 'There's a tsunami - get out'.

"The issue for the National Crisis Management Centre is trying to strike a balance between jumping in too early, or waiting until the tide gauge information is available. And they chose the latter."

He did not think the emergency management office took the best decision in waiting for the tidal gauge information - which can come several hours after the first warning from the Hawaii centre - "but that is the current national warning system".

"All I'm arguing is that if it's so close that waiting for confirmation reduces your warning time for evacuation below an acceptable minimum, then you've got to go with the first report and not wait for it to be confirmed. If they'd done that this morning, you probably would have got as many phonecalls from people who were upset they'd been told to leave when they didn't have to.

"But I think that people would rather be told to get out and have nothing actually happen, than not be told."

When asked if the current emergency plan was comprehensive enough, Admiral Wilson said: "I think the bottomline answer is probably yes, but the actual implementation of the response rests with local authorities.

"For Auckland, there is no tsunami contingency plan. There is no formal evacuation plan, but they're planning to do it."

A report prepared last year following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami stated that New Zealand had not yet developed the capability to monitor for tsunami from nearby sources. 


How the warning system works

A warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii goes out to the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management.

The emergency management office passes the warning on to potentially affected local authority civil defence teams and the police.

If the tsunami's expected time of arrival is less than 2 hours, the emergency management office contacts a Government official able to declare an emergency and decides which areas to evacuate.

If the tsunami is more than 4 hours away, authorities are told to be on standby for further information, and media are told to keep broadcasts about the event to a minimum.

For earthquakes within New Zealand's continental margins, the ministry receives messages from the Hawaii centre and GeoNet, the nationwide network of seismographs and monitoring stations. Currently the alerts do not provide enough time to warn people nearest the affected coast.