Tsunami plans in action

Coastguard Hibiscus has been paged out twice in recent months for tsunami warnings eventuating from earthquakes: after the Chilean earthquake last year and following the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. As crew watched horrific scenes in Japan unfold on television, events on the other side of the world gatecrashed our homes as Coastguard pagers instructied loudly ‘All units activate your tsunami plans’. Our unit’s plan involves taking both our Protector and Sealegs vessels far out to sea to hopefully ride out the tsunami swell before it makes landfall, afterwards returning inshore to assist as needed. However, on this night our Protector was out of the water for maintenance, so crew pitched in and got the boat back into the water and ready for service.

The tsunami, with expected wave height up to one metre, was estimated to hit our east coast around 0753 hrs Saturday. Our plan was to launch both our boats at 0600 hrs, warn all the other nearby boats on the water of the possible danger and meet up beyond Tiri Tiri Matangi and monitor our VHF radios for further information. Crew carried out this plan, waited out at sea for several hours, and as nothing notable had happened locally, on the advice of Coastguard Operations, returned to Gulf Harbour. However, later that same afternoon the effects of the tsunami on our coastline became more apparent when we were paged out to a yacht needing assistance into Gulf Harbour Marina.  Crew at the marina had noticed the water level in the marina rise and fall several times about 700mm over a period of half an hour. The results were strong currents in the marina entrance channel and areas of confused water within the marina, all the result of swells caused by the tsunami. During a lull between swells we returned the yacht to its berth.

Some residents might think, because the effect here was minor, the response was a bit of an overreaction, but such complacency can be lethal. What we saw was the result of something major half a world away, which only took about 12 hours to get here: had the earthquake erupted closer to home the effects could have been dramatically different for us. The worse the impact is going to be, the less warning we will get. Natural disasters overseas can, and do, threaten our coastlines and lives and nature won’t wait until we have got ourselves ready before it strikes. Never ignore a tsunami warning.

This the final Coastguard column for the season. It will be back in Spring.