Walk, bike or car-share to escape tsunami Sumner residents told following new research
Wednesday, 12 June 2019
Sumner residents should evacuate by walking, biking or car-sharing in the event of an in-coming tsunami, according to new research.
State-of-the-art computer modelling is being used to help create the area's emergency plan and people in the seaside suburb got the chance to quiz academics and offer their local knowledge at two presentations on Tuesday.
Around 60 people attended the two-hour afternoon workshop at the Sumner Centre, in Wakefield Avenue, to hear the latest findings which used Agent-Based Modelling to demonstrate how quickly Sumner's 5000 residents could walk to safety.
Some concerns were raised about how realistic it was for everyone to leave on foot but the organisers said residents' views would now be used to refine the area's evacuation plan.
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Liza Sparrow, of Sumner Hub, said a community support group could be set up to help residents who are less mobile.
'Having a neighbourhood support group would allow us to get the message out that people must not drive and instead head for the hills by foot in the event of a tsunami,' she said.
'The idea of some of our older residents having to walk in an emergency situation is quite daunting.
'I think it is also important to consider not only residents, but how many visitors Sumner has on a regular basis. At Taylors Mistake, for example, there could be thousands of people when an emergency happens, so plans for this are important too.
'We're really lucky because we have a working group which consists of Sumner Lifeboat, the surf clubs and the fire brigade. This allows for a large number of quick-thinkers to come together after an emergency event has taken place. These people are also medically capable, which is a huge bonus.'
The Sumner study is one of three New Zealand tsunami projects currently under way, with similar research being carried out in Petone and Napier.
The team is made up of experts from the Christchurch City Council, Civil Defence Emergency Management, Environment Canterbury, GNS Science, Massey University and University of Canterbury.
Thomas Wilson, associate professor in Disaster Risk and Resilience at University of Canterbury told residents a regionally-sourced tsunami, such as one caused by the Hikurangi Subduction Zone, which runs about 50-100km offshore from Gisborne to Marlborough, would reach Sumner within three hours, but a tsunami caused by the Pegasus Bay fault line could arrive in an hour.
Sumner resident Nathalie Pronk-Jones said she attended the talks to learn more after she evacuated her family following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.
'I wanted to see if there was a bit more of a plan of evacuating because the last one got rather congested with cars. A few people were still in their homes when the tsunami sirens were going off,' she said.
'There was a tsunami siren that night (in 2016). We were lucky because we went before the siren went-off. We went up to my sister's house and slept on her floor.
'I heard later on that the people who drove got so congested on the hill that you couldn't actually leave the flat because all the cars were parked all the way up.'
'It's made me think more about people walking rather than taking cars up roads. It made me think we should probably know what the walking tracks are like around Sumner, whether they are actually going to be accessible if there is an earthquake.'