Straight from city council with councillor Steve Morris

Last week I shared the work we've done with tsunami evacuation routes during the last three years and my view – that we need to add loud sirens to the email and text alert system.

Three days later, the earthquakes struck the North Canterbury region and we awoke to the news of severe damage down south and a tsunami warning.

I slept through the text and email alerts; a situation I shared in common with many of you. I spent much of the following day taking phone calls and responding to emails from both concerned and frustrated residents, questioning why we don't just get on with it and install sirens?

I explained the difficulty was there was no 24/7 Civil Defence Emergency Operations Centre in Wellington capable of sending out an alert within an hour and that we had lobbied government for this along with warning buoys in the Kermadec Trench.

That said, I've come to the conclusion the priority now needs to shift to a council-provided siren system. We spend $140m a year on capital projects and $143m a year on operational costs. We spend $10.5m a year on flood protection works alone so a $2m siren system is good value for money.

Particularly if air-raid sirens are selected; some of which have been in service for nearly 70 years. Consequently, I have moved with the support of my colleagues, councilors Leanne Brown and Bill Grainger, that on December 6 council directs staff to provide us with options on siren alerting mechanisms including air-raid sirens – to give us the wake-up call we'll need in the unlikely event.