Japan is the wake-up call showing that Papamoa needs tsunami alarm sirens that work, not turned off!

If TCC can't get their heads around that then someone needs to get hold of one of the Pacific Rim countries that do care like Hawaii which has an excellent siren alarm system and get the Hawaii equivalent of Civil Defence to provide Tauranga with all the information on warning systems.
Probably very happy to help with no real cost involved, do it once and get it right.
If Deputy Mayor Stewart's attitude 'that people panic when they hear a siren, they jump into their cars and head for the hills” is meant to be a throw away line, it falls flat.
As the sirens are programmed only to go off when there is an emergency, perhaps people have every reason to act the way he suggests.
Papamoa emergency escape routes should long since have been in place. Sandhurst Drive or similar should have been extended through to SH2 (a low cost metalled access strip would be fine), gated and padlocked unless an emergency arose which would at least allow people to get to Maungatawa.
Likewise, a slip road through Oceandowns Reserve from Gloucester Road to SH2 would assist and in the past, someone should have had enough brains to have looked at an emergency extension of Palm Beach Boulevard and kept a vacant section to link up with Bruce Road and then on to SH2.
People could then have accessed Kairua Road.
Our Neighbourhood Watch Groups need to be activated to act as lookouts for one's neighbours and perhaps some guidelines should be given in this regard to each Group in the Tauranga City area.
While the above is not an ideal solution or foolproof - doing nothing is not the answer or a viable option.
R Paterson, Matapihi.