Kerre Woodham: Will overusing emergency alerts create complacency?

Let's face it, civil defence coordinators are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Fail to give people sufficient warning of a natural disaster and they're accused of having blood on their hands. Too many warnings of something that doesn't happen, they're accused of alarmist scaremongering, and they become the boy who cries wolf.  

The reason for all of this, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Russia yesterday morning. Why would an earthquake in Russia yesterday trigger four, three or two, if you're lucky, emergency alerts for New Zealanders 18 hours later? It's the long delay between the earthquake and its ripple effect here. It will arrive here, but it's got a long way to come. Apparently, tsunamis travel at speeds equivalent to an Air New Zealand Boeing plane, but it that still gives you plenty of time when you're in New Zealand. Your Boeing still takes a fair while to get to the eastern coast of Russia. Different story if it was a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of New Zealand - then you'd need an emergency alert. But in this particular case, we have the benefit of being a very long way away, and a Victoria University geophysicist quoted in a Stuff story, John Townend says that distance gives our experts time to do the calculations, do the assessments and work out what's likely to come before it arrives.  

So what are we being told? Well, the NEMA director John Price was on with Ryan Bridge on Herald Now this morning and despite the fact that nothing has happened in any of the countries that have been in the tsunami's path as it makes its way here, he repeated that it's still very much an alive threat, a hazard for New Zealanders and the last thing we want, he says, is anyone to be harmed, injured, or killed as a result of going near the coastline. He said the rationale behind the alert at 6:30am this morning was that the commuters going to work and people preparing for school and the like, it would give them time, it would give them knowledge, don't go to the coastline. If normally you would go for a morning walk or you'd go for a morning surf, you might be intending to set out to go and catch some fish and have them for breakfast - don't do that today. The activity, he said, is seen as surges in the water rather than a typical wave formation, so you might think you know the tides. You might think you know the waves, but you don't know the way a tsunami works. He said in the Chatham Islands there's been up to a 40cm wave. To people who say that a 40cm wave is nothing to be worried about, NEMA Director Price said that's just an indicator of what could come, it could be a lot worse. I hope it's only going to be that high, he said.  

You've also heard internationally that there have been other sizable waves that have occurred in other parts of the world. The last thing we want is to be complacent. We know complacency, he says, puts people at risk and may kill people. But nothing happened. And I think that's what the geophysicist John Townend was saying, is that is vastly different to having an 8.8 earthquake off the coast of New Zealand. This happened in Russia, and it gives us time to assess what the possible threat might be. If Hawaii was wiped out. You'd think, crikey, this is serious, and you take all possible precautions. When nothing has happened in Japan or Hawaii? When the danger has passed, you would assume we don't need that same level of urgency when it comes to warnings. If there are too many warnings of things that don't happen, then that makes people complacent, too.  

There are a heck of a lot of texts to ZB this morning, not from grateful consumers of NEMA's emergency texts, but this is sort of representative: "Mike, for the love of God, make the emergency alerts for a non-existent emergency stop. I've just received my 4th in 12 hours. It really is the boy who cried wolf and does nothing but stress out my young children. If anyone knows how to disable them, please let me know," said Matt.   

Well, you know I got one at 4pm yesterday. As I looked over the mud flats, across the water to a narrow channel, I thought crikey, I don't think we need to put the life jackets on just yet or evacuate the house. But you know, good to know. But 6.30am this morning, by then, surely we would know if this was building in strength? That is the advantage of distance. I get it, you know, damned if they do, damned if they don't. Complacency is dangerous, I agree. But I would argue when you have too many emergency alerts of things that do not happen, that is going to inculcate complacency and that will be dangerous. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.