The tsunami evacuation process was smooth - except for the traffic

Friday, 5 March 2021

The streets of many coastal towns cleared out on Friday morning as locals fled for higher ground after a tsunami warning and three earthquakes.

OPINION: If you had to pick a spot with the threat of a tsunami looming, you probably wouldn't choose a traffic jam in the middle of low-lying flat farmland, near the shore.

But hundreds of Northlanders, including my parents, were stuck on the road there this morning, watching the clock inch closer to the predicted arrival time of the waves.

Just before 9am, my mother emailed me to say that the tsunami sirens were going off around their home in One Tree Point, on the coast near Ruakaka. Everyone was told to leave their homes and head to higher ground.

The area behind Ruakaka’s beach is low-lying and not really where you’d want to be stuck with a tsunami coming in.

They got into their car with the intention of driving to my place – inland and on a hill. But half an hour later, they still weren’t at the intersection with state highway one, a trip that would usually take about five minutes. They were stuck in an area that seems to slip under water when there’s a heavy downpour – never mind a tsunami.

Retailers shut their doors in Whangarei.

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People waited for hours on top of hills.

All the while, my phone was pinging with alerts from Civil Defence, commanding us to evacuate and warning of a serious threat to our safety. Heading into the city centre to take photos for Stuff’s live blog, I was driving in the opposite direction to a stream of traffic that was more like an evening rush hour.

Traffic was backed up through the middle of town, too, and many people opted to walk to higher ground rather than sit in their cars. A friend described is as “gridlock”. Big retailers, like Pak’n Save, shut their doors and sent staff home for the day and Civil Defence set up a centre to cater for evacuees at a stadium in the suburb of Kensington.

But while it initially felt that no one was going to move for hours, the traffic didn’t last and my parents eventually arrived at my house at about 10.15. At home, we felt like the lucky ones. Friends sent me photos of groups of school kids on top of hills. My brother parked his car in what is essentially a paddock for five hours to wait for the all clear. “We never really saw much in the bay from up there, maybe a brief hint of a strange colouring in the water and a yacht that was anchored seemed to move quite a bit.”

Whangarei Mayor Sheryl Mai says criticism of the traffic and the time it took some to get out of the low-lying town centre is fair. “That’s definitely something we are looking at, how we could improve that, if at all. The sheer volume of people in lumps of metal that take up a lot of space is difficult to manage.”

National MP Shane Reti said the evacuation process seemed to be smooth, with most people knowing where they should go.

He said while there was congestion around Whangarei – and a load of wood that fell off a trailer on a key roundabout didn’t help - people generally remained calm. “I had people texting me and calling and saying it was taking 50 minutes to get across town when it would normally take 10 or 15 but it’s hard to know how you could fix that.”

Local MP Emily Henderson says the city performed well.

“I am just so hugely grateful to our town, to the schools for getting our kids safely and quickly to higher ground, our local supermarkets, dairies and Four Squares who fed and watered them with the help of our lovely volunteer fire brigades, and churches, organisations and individuals who opened their homes, and of course Civil Defence for doing such a great job pulling it all together.”