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The likelihood of tsunami sirens being placed in Orewa or other areas of the Hibiscus Coast, will be strongly influenced by input from the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board, as well as available funding.
Local boards will soon have a chance to discuss their community’s public alerting needs with Civil Defence & Emergency Management, following the release of the draft Public Alerting Framework report last week.
The draft is an overview that does not get down to the detailed level of identifying siren locations.
Auckland Civil Defence and Emergency Management’s head of strategy and planning Craig Glover says that, following release of the draft, the next step is to speak with local boards about their communities’ needs “and how we can partner with local boards to deliver an enhanced and integrated public alerting system.”
As many as five high powered tsunami sirens are being considered for Orewa, at a cost of around $50,000 each, although this level of detail is not in the report.
The draft says that the risk of tsunami, and its consequences, must be considered when deciding to add sirens to the network. Assessment of this risk at Auckland’s beaches is currently underway.
Council currently has $2.7 million allocated in Long-term Plan budgets for public warning systems – how that will be spent is yet to be decided.
The draft notes the possibility of developing a cost-sharing model, “depending on the level of buy-in and likely uptake from local boards to the enhanced network”.
“This will be determined following initial consultation with local boards, a determination of the scale of any enhanced siren network and available budgets to install that network.”
Local board feedback on the draft Public Alerting Framework will be presented to the May meeting of the Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group Committee.
