Tauranga City Council is inviting the community to the official opening of the first purpose-built tsunami high ground in the Southern Hemisphere on Saturday, 7 April from 3.30pm at Gordon Spratt Reserve, Papamoa. We are incorporating the opening of the high ground into a community evacuation event for Papamoa.
The purpose of the event is to encourage everyone to practice their evacuation plans, including making sure people have an emergency grab bag packed and ready to go. This event will assist people to prepare for a tsunami evacuation and save lives, says Paul Baunton, Manager: Emergency Management and Safety.
“Over the past six years, Tauranga City Council has been working on ways to keep our community safe in the event of a tsunami. We have worked with natural hazard experts and emergency planners to gather an unprecedented amount of knowledge, so that we could confidently identify safe zones and locations.”
Residents along our coastline now have a network of tsunami evacuation routes, safe locations and a suite of clearly marked evacuation maps and signs. However, none of this matters if people do not know where to go, or how and when to use this network.
We are investing in what will become an annual citywide event to highlight the importance of practicing evacuation plans. We need to start in one part of the city first, and over the next two to three years increase the level of participation to all tsunami at-risk communities.
We are encouraging everyone in the Papamoa community to walk or cycle along the evacuation routes to attend a fun and informative event to open the Gordon Spratt high ground, at Gordon Spratt Reserve, Papamoa. If you have a disability, or have family and friends with disabilities, this is a great way to test your personal evacuation plan using your chosen transport.
The inaugural Never Happens? Happens community event is on Saturday, 7 April from 3.30pm to 7pm.
There will be music and entertainment along the routes, as well as emergency services information and displays, sports activities, a live-music stage, food vendors and prizes at the event.