Tauranga City Council is unveiling its vision to have city wide tsunami evacuation routes and signs in place by 2015 allowing residents to move safely away from natural disasters.

The routes and signs are set out for all of Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Papamoa by May 2015 including evacuation routes to a tsunami safe zone that can be reached on foot within 40 minutes.

Tauranga City Council emergency management and safety manager Paul Baunton with one of the new tsunami evacuation signs. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

Tauranga City Council emergency management and safety manager Paul Baunton says the agencies working together on tsunami evacuation route planning are close to being able to identify safe zones for the entire coast.

'It has taken three years to get to this point, but as we get more information the picture is becoming more optimistic,” says Paul.

The first evacuation route signs were installed at the Mount last December in collaboration with Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, NZ Transport Agency, NZ Police, NZ Fire, and the District Health Board.

Evacuation routes for the rest of the city are to be progressively sign posted this year, starting with the inner harbour areas in May, parts of Mount Maunganui and Papamoa in October and finishing with the remaining sections of Papamoa in 2015.

The aim of each evacuation route is to direct people to a tsunami safe zone that can be reached on foot within 40 minutes.

Paul says a big lesson from the 2011 tsunami in Japan is that evacuation in cars led to major traffic jams, putting people at risk.

'The message is not to use vehicles if at all possible. Walking, running or using bicycles are the recommended options.”

Earthquake warnings

New Zealand guidelines published by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management recommend that a large earthquake, or a quake lasting longer than a minute, should be treated as the primary tsunami warning for the community.

In that event people need to self-evacuate by foot immediately.

'It is our job to make sure that people actually have a safe place to go when they evacuate. We are working to identify safe zones that pedestrians can reach within 40 minutes from any point along the coast - including the flattest stretches of Papamoa,” says Paul.

Because of its topography and distance from the Papamoa foothills, it has taken more time to accurately identify safe zones for Papamoa, particularly for the area between Girven Road and Papamoa Beach Road.

A final report from consultants Tonkin & Taylor in April will give council a better idea about when evacuation routes can be sign posted for that part of Papamoa.

Paul says new infrastructure may be needed to secure public access to the safe areas. One item of infrastructure in particular is an additional crossing for pedestrian traffic over the Tauranga Eastern Link.

'Our focus has been on confirming where the safe zones are with the highest level of confidence and how the community can get to those safe areas. Once that information is known, council can have the appropriate conversations about funding for infrastructure where it is necessary.”

Tsunami flood modelling done by Tonkin & Taylor includes work on water velocity to calculate how deep and fast a body of water can get before it becomes life threatening.

This information will reveal where the lower risk parts of Papamoa are – areas of land that are predicted to be innundated by tsunami waters but with a reduced threat to life.

'The first priority will be to direct people from the life threatening areas to the areas of reduced risk, and from there to the dry safe zones.”