We have been over this with Civil Defence in Wellington a number of times, but so far they aren’t interested in actioning any ideas we have on improving communication.  A watch and a threat are basically the same thing – it means there is the CHANCE of a tsunami, but there is still a lot of uncertainty.  A warning is when officials believe the threat is very high of a destructive tsunami.

To make matters more confusing there is the international Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre who are always first to issue warnings and watches – then usually an hour later NZ Civil Defence will issue their official advisory.  Often first it’s a ‘threat’ – which is like a watch.  Then sometimes a warning, or marine warning.

To make it even more confusing – national Civil Defence, based in Wellington, can issue national threats and warnings but local councils/civil defence can issue their own warnings and watches.  So while national CD says "threat only" we have local Taranaki Civil Defence issuing a "tsunami warning" – as we saw today. 

Work to be done in this area and we would love to work proactively with national Civil Defence, just as we do with Auckland Civil Defence, who we believe lead all the other Civl Defence organisations when it comes to communicating effectively to the public.

Cheers

Philip Duncan

I wouldn’t call it a ‘sccop’ when it it’s a potentially life threatening event. It’s not a competition. Metservice.com have a banner referring people to the appropriate organisation monitoring it.