Would you live in a Tsunami affected area?

[Sungok]

With the 115,000 dead (so far from some reports) from the current Tsunami's I think it is opportune to look at why someone would put themselves at unnecessary risk.

Knowing what you do about Tsunami's why would someone live in a coastal area subjecting themselves to higher risks from cyclones and the like?

E.g.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041229%2F2054983100.htm&ewp=ewp_news_tsunami

[XBenX]

Why live in a cyclone risk area...

Why go outside

Your more likely to kill yourself than die from a Tsunami (I didnt bother doing the research but its probably a safe assumption)

[Monopoly]

Exactly XBenX!!!

Sungok, why not concentrate on what you can be do now to help these poor devastated people rather than worrying about circumstances beyond yours or anyone's control. Make the most of everyday, be thankful for your friends, family and the precious gift of life.

Have a Happy New Year. :)

Cheers,

Jo

[capitalist]

With the 115,000 dead (so far from some reports) from the current Tsunami's I think it is opportune to look at why someone would put themselves at unnecessary risk.

Knowing what you do about Tsunami's why would someone live in a coastal area subjecting themselves to higher risks from cyclones and the like?

E.g.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041229%2F2054983100.htm&ewp=ewp_news_tsunami

Why?

Because these people that were affected have little/no choice about where they live. Tourism and fishing are the main industries for these people and i think you'll find fishing is best done on the coast lines... the fishing isn't too good in the mountainous regions.

Why do people live along the San Andreas fault? There is also major fault line that runs through the North island of New Zealand from Auckland. Why do people live in America's mid-west where tornadoes rip through every year? Why do people live in places where the life expectancy is considerably reduced like the slums of Rio or South Central LA?

[Kristine..]

Hi Sungok

You have posed an interesting question. However, Earth is a living planet and is constantly on the move.

For years I lived in a Bush Fire Zone - the whole area had been incinerated back in 1962 and we had to pay a premium for insurance even 30 years later.

My business had to pay an Earthquake levy - and this was in Croydon, Victoria, but right at the end of the fault coming in from Bass Straight way down in Gippsland.

No matter where we live, we are subject to 'natural events'. We can't live our lives in fear of what might happen, when the odds on that happening are millions to one.

Australia is a termite zone, a cyclone zone, an earthquake zone, and being such a huge island, a tsunami zone.

We may as well just keep a stock of baked beans in the pantry and enjoy life while we can.

Cheers

Kristine

[see_change]

And what about all those people who commit slow suicide by smoking .


We're not a logical race.


See Change

[Aceyducey]

Sungok,

Do you live in a coastal area?

If so, ask yourself the question first.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

[Ali G]

Many people hit by the tsunami did not even know what a tsunami was, or that they even existed. Apparently this was one of the biggest problems, as the drastic change in the tide attracted more people to the shore, rather than being a warning sign to run to higher ground.

Back to the original question, everyone has already said it, but there is little point living in fear.

[Lplate]

There are places on the Eastern seaboard of Oz that could suffer a lot of damage from even a small tidal surge, particularly if it coincided with bigger tides or other natural events, such as a cyclone.

This is another reason why building on dunes and reclaiming the foreshore is generally a bad idea. Likewise over-development of canals can increase flooding problems.


Doubtless the Australian media will be running alarmist stories complete with artists' impressions on what could happen if a tsunami struck the East coast of Oz.

[The Y-man]

Hi Sungok,

Whether we like it or not, we live on a big rock hurtling through space that could be hit at any time by a another big rock...... :(

The mounting death toll from the tsunamis is hideous - there is no argument on this point. However, reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
the section "Casualties in a historical context" has even more frightening numbers:

The deadliest earthquakes since 1899 were the Tangshan, China, earthquake of 1976, in which at least 255,000 were killed (estimates for this earthquake are as high as 650,000)

Imagine over half a million people getting wiped out.... I can't. it's beyond my comprehension.

However, it is not just natural disasters. Look at the annual road fatalities in the USA - 41,471 lives lost in the year 1998 :eek:

Wherever you are, there is risk.

Cheers,

The Y-man

[Aceyducey]

However, it is not just natural disasters. Look at the annual road fatalities in the USA - 41,471 lives lost in the year 1998 :eek: On this point, India has 85,000 fatalities and 1.3 million people crippled for life on their roads - each and every year.

A large number of these deaths and injuries are related to two-wheeler accidents - 5x the number as for four wheelers.

Most two wheeler injuries are due to the pillion rider being thrown off whilst not wearing a helmet. Helmets are mandatory under Indian law.

By my figuring that would be between 35,000 and 65,000 deaths and 540,000 and 1 million crippling injuries that are easily and directly preventable each year.

REF: http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/03road.htm

Cheers,

Aceyducey

[Francesco]

Sungok's query is would we live in a tsunami prone area.

My answer is 'yes' provided precautions are made. Governments esp the Oz govt are talking of putting in a regional tsunami warning system. That should have given enough warning to some countries like Sri Lanka where the biggest tsunami took about 2 hours to reach the country. Apparently, the largest tsunami this time round was about 16 m high, so if you build on higher ground and raised flooring to that level it would have minimised damage and increase safety of not being washed away. I could see many coconut trees are still standing on the beaches devasted by the tsunami so building of this structural strength cannot be too difficult to build.

As usual, the wherewithals of money and technology can make a pretty tough environment into a hospital place. :)

[Aceyducey]

OK,

I'm an optimist by nature, but let's talk realistically about a tsunami warning system...

1) We can detect tsunamis at an early stage with around 40% accuracy within two hours of analysis with current technologies (if they were implemented). (yes I've done some research on the topic)

Let's assume that in the next few years we can raise this to 80% within one hour.

2) Once the tsunami is detected and confirmed the regional warning system has to contact the appropriate people responsible for each area likely to be affected. Let's say it takes 30 minutes to reach these people and notify them of the tsunami....of course this assumes there are no hold-ups, no-one crucial is away and telecommunications systems work to 1st world levels.

3) The people responsible have to get the message out to emergency services, inhabitants & tourists. Within 30 minutes with a perfect organisation they can get the word to radio stations & TV stations and onto the air. Within an hour they can have all the emergency services in position on stand-by - assuming again no delays, first world communications standards, that everyone understands it's not a hoax, etc.

Thus within only two hours of a disaster we have broadcasts going out notifying people in affected areas what is happening and within 2.5 hours emergency services can start co-ordinating evacuations.....

Not too bad as a best case....realistically considering breakdowns in systems it would take 4-5 hours to get warnings out, and some governments would not issue warnings at all, but let's stick to this best case.

NOW

4) How long does it take to evacuate people from affected areas?

The US stopped gaming large area evacuations in the 1960s because it was realised that there was no effective way to evacuiate a reasonably-sized area in under a week - and you can only do that with 4 weeks preparation.

Also evacuations (according to US military gaming) had the potential to cause higher casualties as people funnel into areas where it is more dangerous while leaving the area, plus possibilities of riots and other unpleasant events.

So in the absolute best case, I can't see there be an effective way to warn people about tsunamis for anyone living within 4 hours of the tsunami's origin.

For greater distances the warning may potentially increase the death toll due to panic, confusion, traffic jams & people filtering through areas which may take more damage than if they remained at home.

So is having a tsunami warning system about feeling we're doing something or does it actually provide value?

I'm sceptical about a tsunami warning system. I'd like to see the money dedicated to problems with clearer solutions.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

[capitalist]

So is having a tsunami warning system about feeling we're doing something or does it actually provide value?

I guess if rich nations have them, they probably do provide some sort of value even if they cost $250,000 each.

This was published by Reuters on 27/12/04:

Asia tsunami warning system feasible

The major obstacles to creating an early-warning system that could have saved many victims of Asia's massive tsunami are not money and technology, but poverty and political and cultural division besetting the region it hit, experts and officials said Monday.

The wall of water that killed more than 23,300 people in coastal villages in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka was tracked by U.S. seismologists who said they had no way to warn local governments of the danger.

The tsunami was spawned by the most powerful earthquake in 40 years, which struck off the Indonesian coast an hour before the tsunami made landfall on Sunday. U.S. officials tried frantically to warn the deadly wall of water was coming, but there was no official alert system in the region.

Six "tsunameters" along the Pacific coastline, one near Chile and 14 off the Japanese coast now feed data to the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Centers in Hawaii and Alaska.

Scientists wanted to place two more of the tsunami meters in the Indian Ocean, including one near Indonesia, as part of a global warning system, but the plan has not been funded, said Eddie Bernard, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

The tsunameters each cost $250,000 and take about a month to build, Bernard said. "It has been vetted through a (United Nations commission) and they support it but there's always a delay between proposal writing and deployment of the funds."

Jan Egeland, who heads the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a news conference that disaster preparation activities in the Indian Ocean area have focused on monsoons, which are common and can be devastating. Tsunamis typically occur in the area once a century, he said.

He said a warning system should be looked into. "I think it would be a massive undertaking to actually have a full-fledged tsunami warning system that would really be effective in many of these places," he said.

Hilton Root, a Milken Institute senior fellow and a former U.S. representative to the Asian Development Bank, said poverty and instability in the hardest-hit nations could be the biggest barrier to implementing the most crucial aspect of an early-warning system: moving people away from danger.

"These are countries that really don't get along, are at different stages of development and don't trust each other for political reasons," Root said. "They are just beginning to bring down trade barriers so it's an area where the political tension is easily aroused and cooperation never been easy."

But the tsunami's extraordinary toll may be "a wake-up call to these people that they need to think about regional risks and start doing something about it," Root said.

By contrast, the rich nations of the Pacific rim already have extensive, high-tech warning systems in place.

Japan, for instance, has a network of sensors that record seismic data and feed information to a national agency able to issue evacuations warnings within minutes of any quake.

And an earthquake off the California coast would have triggered instant warnings to federal and state agencies via dedicated hotlines, and to the public via emergency broadcasts, said Paul Whitmore, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska.

California also recently launched an electronic system that alerts citizens and emergency workers via e-mail and pager, said Sheryl Tankersley of the state Office of Emergency Services.

"We do have a robust system here in California," Tankersley said. "We like to say it's the best in the nation, if not the world. But it's all based on neighbor helping neighbor. Cooperation is essential."

[Lplate]

Sungok

The main problems in Australia come from cyclones - damage from high winds and flooding. In Oz, relatively few lives are lost from these events and we have less dense populations. I think 100 lives were lost in one cyclone, but the loss of one life is tragic.

In Australia, building the right buildings in the right areas substantially treats the risks and you can still enjoy the delights of being on the coast. :)

But developers have been permitted to build on low areas - swamps, fresh and salt water marshes, creek and river overflow/break-out areas. Also on sandspits, dunes, tidal areas and the like. :(

The action you can take is to examine the 1:100 year flood plain maps and the tidal surge maps available from City Councils and State Govts. For example, pick a few postcodes (say) 4507, 4211, 4218 and see if any rate a mention. If so around 1.7 tropical cyclones pass near SEQld each year (BoM stats).

Check that a decent builder built the house and preferably, that it was not built during a boom :p

Include these actions in your due diligence and you should be OK.

Hope this helps.
LPlate

[Brenda Irwin]

I have often wondered about waterfront coastal properties. What happens if the sea permanently claims your house and land? What if it was previously attracting land tax? Do you just vanquish your house and land and spend lots more $ trying to convince the land tax office that your property no longer exists, or does land get taxed even if it is underwater?

[Thommo]

But developers have been permitted to build on low areas - swamps, fresh and salt water marshes, creek and river overflow/break-out areas. Also on sandspits, dunes, tidal areas and the like. :(


Sadly, these areas are our most valuable, ecologically speaking, but the cheapest for developers to buy so that is where BIG developments occur. And they get canals and sea views.:mad: Bloody shame!!!

Thommo

[Olly]

Having watched a doco on tsunamis tonight it would seem that most of this thread revolves around earthquake produced tsunamis when landslide produced tsunamis are worse and can't be predicted ergo forget the early warning signs. Earthquakes usually cause a split with one side rising higher than the other by around 10 metres. The height of the rise is usually the height of the wave caused and a 10 metre wave is pretty destructive!

Imagine the size of the wave if a HUGE chunk of land slipped into the sea!

Geologists having researched the entire world for likely spots that this will happen have chosen the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa as the most likely place and it can happen anytime from now. It's a definite - it's going to happen - it's just a matter of when. The island is made up of 2 volcanos - 1 active and 1 inactive and there is a massive fault line running about 20kms across the island. They explored the inactive volcano to discover clues as to the cause and found that volcanos hold a lot of water that is trapped in 'dams' made from the vertical columns of hardened lava from previous eruptions. With heat, water expands, breaks through the 'dam walls' and chunks of the volcano slide/fall off.

The show showed simulated lab tests and even using conservative figures predicted a 30 mile wide wave, 650 metres high and travelling at around 720mph which would reach the east coast of America within 5 hours and travel about 20kms inland along the entire coastline.

You can read more on it here -
http://www.benfieldhrc.org/SiteRoot/in_the_news/press_cuttings/Insurance%20Day/why_the_only_certainty.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_tsunami.shtml
http://armageddononline.tripod.com/tsunamis.htm

I know we take our lives in our hands every day and just about every country in the world COULD have an earthquake or volcano eruption or tornado etc, but we go about our daily business in ignorant bliss. But when they say a huge chunk of an island will DEFINITELY slide off and cause a MASSIVE tsunami that WILL wipe out the east coast of America, and it could happen at any moment, then to answer Sungok - I would not live on the east coast of America.

Cheers
Olly

[Blitzkrieg]

Tsunami? What ever happened to a good ol'fashioned "tidal wave"?

Just a Blitzkrieg musing......

[geoffw]

Tsunami? What ever happened to a good ol'fashioned "tidal wave"?

Just a Blitzkrieg musing......I learnt "tidal wave" at school many years ago. I vaguely remember hearing some years later that this term was incorrect- the term "tsunami" came in some years later (apparently Japanese for "harbour wave")- but never became really well known- until now.

I found it quite disturbing that the article in Wikipedia on tsunamis was briefly replaced by a racist message.

[Andrew_A]

Imagine the size of the wave if a HUGE chunk of land slipped into the sea!

Geologists having researched the entire world for likely spots that this will happen have chosen the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa as the most likely place and it can happen anytime from now. It's a definite - it's going to happen - it's just a matter of when. The island is made up of 2 volcanos - 1 active and 1 inactive and there is a massive fault line running about 20kms across the island. They explored the inactive volcano to discover clues as to the cause and found that volcanos hold a lot of water that is trapped in 'dams' made from the vertical columns of hardened lava from previous eruptions. With heat, water expands, breaks through the 'dam walls' and chunks of the volcano slide/fall off.

Cheers
Olly
On a geological timeframe this Tsunami was not even a large one, http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm is a very interesting site. There is a tsunami link on the left hand side.

"And there's more disturbing news. If the Doomsday Wave kicks in, it'll be end of story for the US East Coast. New York City: gone. Boston: washed away. Florida, Miami, the Bahamas -- all history. Oh, several hundreds of years may pass before the Super Wave rolls in. But on the other hand, it could happen next month as well."

"And La Palma? Only recently scientists realised that the ideal conditions for the next landslide exist on the island. Actually, in 1949, an eruption of the Cumbre Vieja almost triggered the La Palma disaster. The volcano erupted, the weaker half of the island dropped down four meters -- and halted. It was only in the nineties geologists realised what a close call it really was."

They haven't updated their tsunami page since the disaster.

[Olly]

Tsunami? What ever happened to a good ol'fashioned "tidal wave"?

Just a Blitzkrieg musing......

Last month a tornado ripped through my daughters suburb, (Hinchinbrook near Liverpool), but weather people were loathe to call it that because of the connotations it holds so called it a willy willy instead. I wondered at the time if they suppressed the danger of it or the fact it even happened as only the local papers picked it up and a there was a brief mention on Channel 10 in the evening. Maybe it was the thinking - Tornado? in Hinchinbrook? No Way! We'll call it a willy willy.

But it was definitely a tornado not a willy willy or wild storm. In fact, I was in a training session at the time and during a break we were standing outside smoking (yeah yeah I know) and we all commented on the black clouds coming in from 2 directions and causing a downward funnel/spout. I even made the comment "if you didn't know any better you'd think we were looking at a tornado". 30 mins later I got an emergency call from my daughter asking me to pick the kids up from daycare and keep them overnight because of the damage and she told me what happened.

My daughter was home at the time and took cover under her kitchen benchtop. There was no preceding storm just a roaring sound and a massive wind that swept through and was all over in minutes. She lost tiles off the roof, but the most damage was caused by next door who lost all their roof and the tiles that were thrown through my grandchildrens bedroom window (the entire room and all their clothes/possessions had to be replaced) and they would have been killed had they been asleep in their beds. The tiles punched holes in her pergola which is still to be fixed and garbage bins and sheds etc ended up in her garden from streets away. As my daughters house was the only one that sustained glass damage within the block, (windows, mirrored sliding wardrobe doors etc) we can only surmise that the glass from my granchildrens bedroom was the glass that ended up on next doors roof and in their garden, as they sustained no damage at all. That was some wind that picked that up and blew it about! It was followed by heavy rain for about 30 mins then disappeared as if it never happened.

The newspaper article is here - http://www.somersoft.com/forums/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1139&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

That's my daughters green shed in the background and the guy pictured is the one who lost his roof.

Just a random act of nature happening in a place not usually known for this type of weather activity.

Was it the Twilight Zone show that used to have the tag "Expect the Unexpected".

Cheers
Olly

[Peter 14.7]

OK,

I'm an optimist by nature, but let's talk realistically about a tsunami warning system...

1) We can detect tsunamis at an early stage with around 40% accuracy within two hours of analysis with current technologies (if they were implemented). (yes I've done some research on the topic)

Let's assume that in the next few years we can raise this to 80% within one hour.

2) Once the tsunami is detected and confirmed the regional warning system has to contact the appropriate people responsible for each area likely to be affected. Let's say it takes 30 minutes to reach these people and notify them of the tsunami....of course this assumes there are no hold-ups, no-one crucial is away and telecommunications systems work to 1st world levels.

3) The people responsible have to get the message out to emergency services, inhabitants & tourists. Within 30 minutes with a perfect organisation they can get the word to radio stations & TV stations and onto the air. Within an hour they can have all the emergency services in position on stand-by - assuming again no delays, first world communications standards, that everyone understands it's not a hoax, etc.

Thus within only two hours of a disaster we have broadcasts going out notifying people in affected areas what is happening and within 2.5 hours emergency services can start co-ordinating evacuations.....

Not too bad as a best case....realistically considering breakdowns in systems it would take 4-5 hours to get warnings out, and some governments would not issue warnings at all, but let's stick to this best case.

NOW

4) How long does it take to evacuate people from affected areas?

The US stopped gaming large area evacuations in the 1960s because it was realised that there was no effective way to evacuiate a reasonably-sized area in under a week - and you can only do that with 4 weeks preparation.

Also evacuations (according to US military gaming) had the potential to cause higher casualties as people funnel into areas where it is more dangerous while leaving the area, plus possibilities of riots and other unpleasant events.

So in the absolute best case, I can't see there be an effective way to warn people about tsunamis for anyone living within 4 hours of the tsunami's origin.

For greater distances the warning may potentially increase the death toll due to panic, confusion, traffic jams & people filtering through areas which may take more damage than if they remained at home.

So is having a tsunami warning system about feeling we're doing something or does it actually provide value?

I'm sceptical about a tsunami warning system. I'd like to see the money dedicated to problems with clearer solutions.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

As usual Aceyduecy raises a valid point.

We often think we know what to do in an emergency having watched TV and being intelligent beings.

But do we really react to warnings?

Are we trained to know what to do when confronted with a uncontrolable and massive risk?

The reality is we are often confused and make wrong decisions. We also dont believe.

I subscribe to the theory that potential disasters are more common that we think and it is human reaction and training combined with luck that influences the level of loss.

Personally I have experienced:

Coffs Harbour Cyclone Warning around 1994.

It was a Saturday arvo and wife and I had retired for a nap (yes we have no children but it really was a nap) and them decided to watch video. Oblivious to the outside world until my business partner called to ask “Had we prepared”. We went out and packed a few things away but not really sure what to do or where to go, if at all.

Had I responded correctly? No. Why? I had no sense of danger and no training or advice on what to do. We were not locals and didn’t know what a cyclone could do.

Would a warning system helped? NO…unless it was recorded phone message to all but I assume that would block the wires anyway.

So as you can read it is not that simple as sending out an alert.

I know many people actually went to the beach to check out the water spouts. Also many did hear and fear the risk and in the general panic caused a number of car accidents as parents rushed to pick up kids from sports, buy provisions and such.

In the end it never came and was down graded to a severe storm so mostly became a talking point at parties. But when you see the preparation and mass evacuation the US does in Florida obviously they know the real risk.

As for Tsunami’s, having seen the risk on TV and news I would rush to higher ground if a warning came, especially as we lived close to the beach and a coastal creek at the time.

1998 Sydney Hailstorm

How many of you have seen the news saying hail as big as golfballs and thought, yeah, a bit of artistic license here? I did until this storm.

Typical early evening about 8:30pm that was hot and changing to storm very quickly. Was watching TV and no warning came on air despite having hit Wollongong and Southern Suburbs. I understand some radios had sent a warning but who listens to the radio at night? Also some announcers were very cynical of the reports coming in.

Would I have responded? Maybe to my car but it is parked in the street anyhow so where can I put it? Like many I would have put a blanket over the car.

Well, ….blankets don’t stop golfballs. The first rocks hit nearby roofs so hard they ( the rocks) exploded. I thought someone’s gas bottle had gone up. After five more we realized what it was and that it was too late to do anything.

Our brand new car enjoyed $10k of damage with every panel dinted but we lost no glass. Had we parked three spaces down the road, where cars were not as protected, we would have lost windows and suffered water damage like our neighbors. Their $20k car was written off.

We suffered $7k damage to roof and skylight smashed. Again luck plays a part. Our skylight is over the shower so the rain did not matter. Next door neighbor has five skylights, two over bedrooms and one over a hallway. Lots of water damage and celing collapse.

All done in ten minutes.

Yet whilst Surry Hills was pummeled, 1km away in Ultimo and Pyrmont it was a non-event. The entire eastern suburbs were hit yet amazingly no-one was killed or hurt seriously. Now when I hear Hailstorm I prepare but those who didn’t live through it don’t understand the fuss. Would you?

Afterwards us neighbors went outside to inspect and it looked like a war zone. Not long after the storm the nearby Drama Theater finished. A hundred patrons came out to dozens of cars with alarms wailing and full of water and stripped leaves.

Some didn’t believe our story as they hadn’t heard a thing. Having not seen it they simply could not understand. It was clear skies and all the water had run away by then. Except that water sitting half way up car doors from the inside.

Had the storm been say 50km out to sea no-one would have cared or known. Had it been restricted to say National Park or lesser populated area again it would not had even made the news. Circumstances.

Despite talk and Multi $M’s of damage and years of repairs Sydney still doesn’t have a coherent hailstorm warning system. They can track it and predict it but they have no system of telling everyone.

I can only imagine the shock and danger the Canberra Bushfires causes. Yet how many times do you see some fool in thongs and shorts with a garden hose saying I staying to defend my home? And you even get sightseerers

So I write this in support of Acey comments that being wise after the event is easy. The reality is it takes training, and coordination to reduce loss and often both are lacking in an emergency of massive scale.

And as time passes the risk is forgotten until next time.

Peter 147

[geoffw]

We often think we know what to do in an emergency having watched TV and being intelligent beings. I can only imagine the shock and danger the Canberra Bushfires causes. Yet how many times do you see some fool in thongs and shorts with a garden hose saying I staying to defend my home? And you even get sightseerersThere were warnings for the Canberra bushfires- as long as you tuned in on the radio to ABC AM (and later one FM station). People like me who were very close to the bushfires (I was at work two suburbs away from a suburb alight, but didn't know) had access to Internet and TV, but there were no warnings on either medium.

In that case, a TV warning would have alerted me to get away earlier. As it was, it was only my boss coming in which alerted me to the fanger. The building I was working in only survived thanks to intense water bombing.

[Ali G]

Well said Peter!

Obviously this is on a much smaller scale, but every Friday at work the emergency alarms are tested, preceded by an explanation that it is a test only. Every Friday all the staff take great delight in imitating the alarm as it is tested (everyone knows it is a "beep beep" and then the next test is a "whoop whoop"). Last time the alarms were sounded for real, everyone looked at one another blankly, then imitated the alarms, laughed and kept working. Just as Peter said, people take no notice unless they have been through the 'real deal' previously.

[Lplate]

Well said Peter!

Obviously this is on a much smaller scale, but every Friday at work the emergency alarms are tested, preceded by an explanation that it is a test only. Every Friday all the staff take great delight in imitating the alarm as it is tested (everyone knows it is a "beep beep" and then the next test is a "whoop whoop"). Last time the alarms were sounded for real, everyone looked at one another blankly, then imitated the alarms, laughed and kept working. Just as Peter said, people take no notice unless they have been through the 'real deal' previously.

Ali G
Hi.
The rule in some workplaces is that staff are not to leave when the evacuation sound is heard but are to wait for an announcement by the Fire Brigade or the Building Warden. This is because business does not want interruptions caused by false alarms.

I walked out of the local big shopping centre recently when the evacuation sound was sounding, but shoppers were still being allowed to stream in, use lifts etc. I had enough time to obtain and consume a drink from a shop in a nearby street while the Brigade arrived and turned off the alarms.

What I am saying is that non-compliance with alarms is actively encouraged.

After an emergency that results in loss of life there is always speculation as to why people did not take notice of alarms - the answer is that they were trained not to.
LPlate

[Thommo]

Timing is critical to whether warnings are given and heeded.

It is not clear that the Yanks got warning before the Pearl Harbour attack, but I believe they did. But it was Xmas and who could the radio guys tell?

On a much smaller scale in late '98 a low pressure system (rain depression, semi-cyclone) parked about 50k North of townsville and dumped steady rain on the town for hours. It started to get serious well before midnight but by then all local TV and radio stations had switched to southern relays. The "most" local radio station did not switch back to it's local studio until 3am. Too little too late.

We suffered one drowning death and the first thing most knew of the flooding was when their feet got wet. The sun rose on a scene of devistation.

Back to the current disaster, the seismology station in Hawaii KNEW there would be such waves but had no-one to tell. Without satellite enabled fire detectors/alarms we will remain at the mercy of things that happen at an inconvenient time or place.

Such is life and death.

T

[GreatPig]

Geologists having researched the entire world for likely spots that this will happen have chosen the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa as the most likely place and it can happen anytime from now. It's a definite - it's going to happen - it's just a matter of when.
Not everyone agrees that it's definite.

Tidal Wave Threat Over-Hyped (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3963563.stm)

GP