[upnorthkyosa]

How prepared is NZ for a major natural disaster? What steps does the government have in place to deal with this? What agencies exist in the private sector to deal with this? Please share with us your opinions on what would happen if a major earthquake or major volcanic eruption happened tomorrow...

[swissmissdesigner]

I know only that mostly our kiwi friends has not even an emergency packet, like we have for earthquake here in California.
I helped them to make one or just give them the US. website for more info.

[RamblingPaddies]

I know only that mostly our kiwi friends has not even an emergency packet, like we have for earthquake here in California.
I helped them to make one or just give them the US. website for more info.

if you could paste the URL to that website here, that'd be great

[migratory birds]

Tsunami alert systems - have they been put in place in most coastal communities?

We visited with some friends who live in community accessible by one winding road thru the mountains (as well as by boat) - all of their petro/food/etc comes via this road.

Many of the people in this community of about 5000 realize that one earthquake could take out that one road and that could be it for weeks or months for restocking fuel/food/medicine/etc stores.

As a community they are working together to address sustainability issues so if this natural event were to occur they could move forward feeling the least impact. They're looking at what members of their community needs and how individuals and groups can start meeting some of those needs in the short and long term. In the long run, it could reduce thier dependency on fossil fuels if the community diversifies production of what they have consistent need for. They are also looking at how their port, that is no longer used for importingexporting goods to/from the community, can be better utilized for commerce as well as transportation.

Doesn't directly answer your question about what the government is doing...rather what one small group of people in one isolated community are doing.

You might also present this question on the "ExPats-in-New-Zealand" yahoogroup - if the Kiwi geologist, Rob, is still on the list he will post a detailed response to your query. This link may work: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Expats-in-New-Zealand/

[swissmissdesigner]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/earthquakes/archive/ready.dtl

We also have a tent with sleeping bags in the car.
Also don't forget: the food container has to be replaced every year!

[IanW99]

Check out this link EQ-IQ (http://www.eq-iq.org.nz/) for the NZ equivalent.

The government seems very prepared for natural disasters in NZ and there are always lots of information and advertising on the subject.

In the telephone directories they print the details of your disaster emergency kit and do try to get people to actually produce one.

The councils also subsidise water bottles etc to try to get people to store enough should an emergency happen.

Companies provide earthquake drills.

Not sure how prepared the general public actually are, sure most don't really prepare or have enough stuff if the worst did happen - sure that's the same problem everywhere.

Ian

[Xaviera]

As Ian has said, the back page of the telephone directory has a "How to Survive" ia natural disaster. Civil defence agencies practice their strategies and people have always been encouraged by the government to have a 3 day cache of emergency supplies - not that we all do of course!

[ourquest]

It is really up to the people who live in a country to be aware, and take the necessary steps to equip themselves. The government can only point out the dangers, provide what monitoring they can and use available media to alert people if there is time.

Geologically you can allocate risk to specific areas for each of the potential natural occurrences, but the amount of warning you have differs: earthquakes are mostly unpredictable, tsunamis have the potential for some forewarning, and most volcanic eruptions can be predicted.

Even where people are alerted in time, there is a resistence amongst some to take the warnings seriously. And when a warning is given, sometimes the severity doesn't manifest as expected, and this affects people's inclination to react again in the future.

Do earthquake proof your home (tying down heavy items etc), Don't live "downstream" from a volcano in a valley, and don't live within 35m of sea-level, and then for the most part there is not much else you can do.

Although a risk in NZ, as they haven't experienced many devastating occurrences it is a bit of an unknown as to how prevention and disaster relief would actually succeed.

[kanatakiwi]

the government (not sure if city or regional or federal) provide emergency preparedness seminars. I signed up for one in auckland, but unfortunately could not go so can't say how good the seminar was, but they do hold them and it was well advertised.

[andrewandjane]

i know the auckland emergency operations centre is based on my floor at work and theres always lots of exercises for disasters etc and its all very organised. so id say theres lots of preparation at a government level but not so much at an individual level.