Suzanne Williams

Well, we have come through the cyclone relatively unscathed with no loss of life and Civil Defence did a good job. It is only the latest of many increasingly extreme events.

I am impelled to write in belated appreciation, even awe, of the opinion piece from Mawera Karetai (Beacon, January 28) on what is certainly coming sometime in the future, entitled “A Call for Action: Why Bay of Plenty Must be Ready for What’s Coming”. Her excellent article should leave even “naysayers” lost for words - her detailed scientific explanation of the hazardous nature of this area, along with many other parts of our country, should make all but the most determined human ostriches sit up and take notice.

She is, perhaps, a little short on specifics; i.e. (for those of us who are not very bright, or IT savvy) how do we check our home’s earthquake resilience? and identify hazards?

We know that we are vulnerable to tsunami events and most of us should have our grab bags ready.

The website of the Whakatāne District Council has some useful information, but where does one find a map to tell us where the different zones are? Am I in a Blue Zone?

The web page doesn’t tell me. While a tsunami can be of any size, we need to know the areas of greatest risk, so that the whole of Whakatāne does not panic and jam the roads, as we have seen before.

Has the abortive evacuation of Whakatāne in the last tsunami alert taught us anything? Why is there no siren system in place for those many people who did not even know that there was an emergency?

Why are there still no facilities for a toilet and water supply “up the hill”? Perhaps a toilet could be sited at the Appenzell Road shopping centre, with drinking water?

Anyway, if I had to evacuate tomorrow, I would certainly take a trowel or tiny spade with me and there is toilet paper in my grab bag.

Potentially worse than a tsunami would be an earthquake of the severity of those foretold as due -- over magnitude eight. “Drop, cover and hold” seems hardly adequate.

Some will say that this sort of talk is simply scaremongering; I wonder if they will still say that when they are lying under the collapsed roof of their houses, with many dead and injured around?

The hazards of climate change are continually being brought to our attention worldwide, but, in the immortal words of Al Gore, it is an “Inconvenient Truth”, which is still being largely ignored, while the world blunders on towards – what? The sixth great extinction?