For instance, the list recommends a radio. Well, I think we have one (along with bottled water and canned food — my partner's a lot more organised than I am..). But I couldn't say for sure; I never use?

Beyond musing about the ethics of when it's okay to start looting the local service station

Those bastards have been overcharging you for bread for years, eh?

Around here, summer tornados are the most significant risk. I'm proud to own one of those wind-up torches, too (and, yes, a full?

food for three days

I have two teenagers. Do you know how much bread that is?

There's a packet of dried figs my mum brought up at Christmas...

I do have a transistor radio though. They broadcast emergency information on Radio Sport, right?

As for water, didn't someone here use the phrase?

But on the other hand, I have a torch. It's got an LED bulb and is powered by a dynamo (i.e. you crank it; no batteries). It's not great to use but I've not no worries about it not working in an emergency.

We have similar ones that have a?

My Sony wind-up radio is always to hand. Where are all those wind-up computers? One was being passed around at a Wellington Great Blend a?

How many people (especially under 30s) these days have a radio that's not in their car or part of their cellphone?

I have a shower radio shaped like a frog, which I use daily to listen to NatRad during my ablutions. But I am 35.

I have a shower radio shaped like a frog, which I use daily to listen to NatRad during my ablutions. But I am 35.

You raise a good point. Another service of NatRad (and probably Radio Sport), enhancing New Zealand's disaster preparedness. I mean why else do people have small?

I do have a transistor radio though. They broadcast emergency information on Radio Sport, right?

They reported both Vettori's sore neck and Oram's "I fell over the grass and broke my knee (again)" injury. That seems to qualify as "emergency information".

There's a packet of dried figs my mum
brought up at Christmas...

OMG! You'd eat your mother's vomit?
Are there Pelicans in the family tree?
:- )

It's not hard to see why Civil Defence gets antsy about people going down to the beach for a gander.

And am I the only one detecting a certain... terseness in response to the inevitable bitches about CD "over-reacting". Damned if you do...

Still, you've got to love the cheerful?

For the HB earthquake , even in 1931, there was a constant stream of cars heading into and out of HB by the evening of the quake.
My worry is the electricity network through the north island is vulnerable to volcanic eruption/quake as there is a concentration at Whakamaru, which?

Still, you've got to love the cheerful obliviousness with with human beings build cities on flood plains, malarial swamps, fault lines and the flanks of active volcanoes.

The alternative is living in Palmerston North.

But he also said a lot of people went down to the beach to watch it.... I guess some things never change.

I've lately wondered if GNS staff and media organisations should consider avoiding using the word "wave" to describe a tsunami.

It's correct scientifically but it's also completely misleading?

Still, you've got to love the cheerful obliviousness with with human beings build cities on flood plains, malarial swamps, fault lines and the flanks of active volcanoes.

I spent much of the weekend out of range of phone, TV, radio and internet on a beach on the east coast. On?

They reported both Vettori's sore neck and Oram's "I fell over the grass and broke my knee (again)" injury. That seems to qualify as "emergency information".

I approve this message.

OMG! You'd eat your mother's vomit?
Are there Pelicans in the family tree?

Yes. You have outed me. We are?

In the large caldera-forming eruptions, a lot of the erupted material accumulates within the caldera itself as it collapses, and the old land surface may be buried to several kilometres depth.

For those near Taupo, an asbetos suit might come in handy – looks like some Jules Verne type venturing?

The alternative is living in Palmerston North.

That's a bit like saying suicide is an alternative to growing old. Do not want.

I ask that because in all the press around the latest tsunami alert, I was rather surprised (and shouldn't have been)?

Arise my fellow athiests! Pack your house with?

I've lately wondered if GNS staff and media organisations should consider avoiding using the word "wave" to describe a tsunami.

To give them credit, NatRad were actually pretty good about making the distinction on Sunday morning.

We have some intermittently filled water containers and a 10kg sack of rice for the Big One/pandemic/can't be arsed shopping this week. And multiple jars of chutney in the fridge that various people have given?

It's correct scientifically but it's also completely misleading to people who don't typically think of a water wave as a surging wall of water with a 100 km wavelength of force behind it that won't slow down and stop as it comes up the beach.

This is a really good?

Palmy's a flood plain – it's right on the Manawatu River. What about Masterton? :-)

I knew that was going to backfire on me. So, Masterton. Or Timaru.

Like the rugby world cup entertainment planning, for example....

I think the US would notice if the left coast's ports were shut down for any length of time...

Won't they be using their new NAFTA economic corridors from Mexico? (Though Mexico is not exactly earthquake free itself...)

...a surging wall of water with a 100 km wavelength of force?

Do the contents of the hot water cylinder count?

Not of you don't have it tied down well enough that it escapes during the quake and crushes someone. Nor does it count if your house is on on traditional NZ brick piles, or is not bolted to the concrete foundation?

You learn all about this stuff when you get the building inspection when you buy a house in California.

I've just been told I need a Seismic Strap...

Basically, the whole of Yellowstone is a volcano. A volcano so big, you can only see the whole thing when you're in orbit. Apparently it's overdue for another blow.

I've been keeping an eye on the Yellowstone Earthquake maps (and more info here) for a while now – always activity?

I've just been told I need a Seismic Strap...

Did the earth move...

...sorry, I'm having a hyperactive episode. I'm just initiating a self-regulatory 'Time out'.

Postscript. God, I just read your blog post after posting this, so hope my comment above wasn't considered out of line. Glad to have?

A supercity needs a superdisaster!

I want to know which superheroes we can expect.

I've just been told I need a Seismic Strap...

Is that for your house or your bedroom? ;)

I want to know which superheroes we can expect.

Is 'The Free Market' a superhero? He is certainly credited with near-omniscent powers by His bands of devoted followers.

I anticipate we'll end actually end up with this bunch of pathetic Lame-o's

as a safety nerd I have 12 4litre bottles of water, tins, waterproof matches & other boring things in the garage and i check it every 12 months. I also have a?

called Plinian after a young eye witness.

Please don't tell me that is a quote from Te Papa.

Water? Do the contents of the hot water cylinder count?

Might dig out the old homebrew kit. Stopped using it years ago because it always resulted in having lots of very sub-par beer. Stuff that would sit around for long periods undrunk and eventually need to be drained away -?

New Zealand is hardly likely to suffer a water shortage, being both pluvial and Plinian.

If the water is contaminated with ash and acid rain, its plenty is somewhat moot.
Auckland actually does have this somewhat covered, with many of the named mountains having been excavated and turned into gravity-feed?

I anticipate we'll end actually end up with this bunch of pathetic Lame-o's

Maybe Auckland will get that noted Avenger Yellowjacket he started off as Antman and ended up as the Wasp – don't be deceived by other yellow jacketed impersonators (even if they are a WASP).

a decent civil emergency is all NZ needs to push us over the line into a nation of practical gourmets

With fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The only social tool that remained fully working was facebook; my Chilean friends say that FB went into overdrive for both businesses and friends checking in and confirming their family/employees/friends status, relieving not just people but i would have thought also taking pressure off the telephone network.

I have a?

Now there's one for the list. And olives, stuffed, and in oil. The Mediterranean diet is supposed to have health benefits.

Would it be too much to store carbonated water? Bit posh maybe.

Please don't tell me that is a quote from Te Papa.

Mr. Theyounger is quoted extensively in the exhibit.

When that puppy blows, it's goodnight nurse, a metre of ash in Auckland and don't bother coming home from your OE, ever.

It all hinges on whether the student loan computers are killed or not.If that data is wiped, I wager there will be at least a dozen folk returning?

The big threat as we've experienced is Tsunami. Because it can happen anywhere and still hit these islands.

Poor Auckland has a few Volcanos and the only good volcano is a dead volcano, but they never die.

Now to remeber?

Please don't tell me that is a quote from Te Papa

Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, and Pliny the younger (a boy at the time?) wrote about it, according to my recollection of one of the panels at the Te Papa exhibition.

Not for your kids I hope? Sue Bradford made that sorta stuff illegal.

There was enough energy released in the Chilean earthquake to destroy buildings and landscape over a large region, slosh the Pacific ocean around, and speed up the earth's spin. Where did this energy come?

Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, and Pliny the younger (a boy at the time?) wrote about it, according to my recollection of one of the panels at the Te Papa exhibition.

Yes. As soon as he heard of the eruption, Pliny the Elder organised an expedition to see?

Yep; the Elder died trying to evacuate people by boat. There is, not incidentally, another great BBC docudrama about this.

Simulposted! But that docudrama was very liberal with the historical record and completely botches the scene of Pliny's death. Also, it's not at all clear that his was a rescue?

My understanding about where the energy comes from is this:

The earth's continents are floating, and move around on currents generated by heat rising from within the earth.

If you've ever made jam, you may have seen the "scum" moving around as the jam underneath bubbles. I think of?

I need to go back to the Awesome Forces exhibition at Te Papa as I'm sure it?

The energy is derived as follows. In Chile the Nazca plate is moving eastward under the Sth American plate at the rate of about 70mm per year. This is along a plate interface of several 1000km's. Now not all of this interface moves freely, parts of it are "stuck"?

disclaimer: i work for GNS in GeoNet... :-)

It shows. Thanks.

Any good oil on the particular situation in the Wellington CBD?

earthquake prediction is on a par with weather-forecasting Hilary.
The tech gets better but the variables are huge and reliability of when/where/how great forecasts are a distant dream.

Especially when you start forecasting weeks or months, or even years, in advance. Forecasting tomorrow's weather is getting pretty accurate, and the?

Yep; the Elder died trying to evacuate people by boat. There is, not incidentally, another great BBC docudrama about this.

And the first episodes of Roman Mysteries, not long aired on TVNZ6 =)

I like the jam image

Magmalade ?

assuming you're not meaning the pending Phoenix game....

http://www.gns.cri.nz/wellingtonfault/

The good news is that recent GNS research has shown the Wellington Fault ruptures more like every 900 years (on average) not every 600 years as previously thought. The last big one was about 300 years ago ,so plenty of?

But that's just the Wellington fault. The nearby Wairarapa Fault last broke in 1855 and caused a magnitude 8.2 quake which would still be pretty, shall we say, exciting, in the wellington CBD.

On a technical level, how did you feel about the docudrama TV3 did last year? IIRC that?

-yessss!

Tsunami are also earthquake-triggered: there are deep trenches offshore from where I live that have triggered past tsunami by slumping.

Supposedly the coast around Kaikoura is at risk of this, as I heard a while ago. A 5 second google search popped up this NIWA paper from 2006 which (from?

a landslide generated tsunami

Probably not a good idea for me to start talking about the Canary Islands at this point in the evening.

[[http://armageddononline.tripod.com/tsunamis.htm
|The island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa, was discovered to be in great danger of collapsing. The?

Anybody mentioned that our tenure on this planet, our only lonely home, is – precarious?

@ Hilary

The best place to look for overseas stuff is the usgs website.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html

they look after the global seismic network which is able to locate large earthquakes any where in the world. Our NZ network cant locate events too far outside NZ with any?

The only social tool that remained fully working was facebook; my Chilean friends say that FB went into overdrive for both businesses and friends checking in and confirming their family/employees/friends status, relieving not just people but i would have thought also taking pressure off the telephone network.

Facebook was impressive?

called Plinian after a young eye witness.

Please don't tell me that is a quote from Te Papa.

That was an understandable abbreviation of an explanation at the exhibition that because of Pliny the younger's vivid descriptions of the eruption, those types of eruptions were then known as Plinian.

unfortunately that La Palma story is somewhat exagerated......

Seems we, in Auckland, would have days or maybe weeks to prepare for a volcano to blow (of course this wouldn't be a volcano that currently exists but a new one).

Auckland (aside from being underwater millions of?

You sound disappointed.

From the mildly hysterical tone of the 'armageddononline' website I linked, I did kinda suspect it might not be 100% kosher.

I just vaguely recalled the story from a couple of years ago and went googling.

Here a couple of more credible links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3963563.stm

http://www.lapalma-tsunami.com/

ham radio enthusiasts have been very helpful in natural disasters recently, but that seems like a dying hobby

The internet won't fail though? It was designed to withstand nuclear war, so surely earthquakes and supervolcanoes wouldn't break it.

Plus, my feeling about big disasters is that there's nothing one can do about it, so why stress? If there's?

Having said that... I do have quite a good collection of useful stuff. My friend works for the?

unfortunately !!!??!!!!

You sound disappointed.

.

hah! poor choice of words, *luckily* i meant.

@Yamis. The Waitaks are indeed made up of an old volcano that once existed to the west of AUckland. It is part of a chain of long dead volcanoes that exist offshore from Kaipara to the?

Lucy: I saw that docudrama and I thought it was quite unrealistic that they closed off the Wellington?

Those two who broke into the chemist shop to get diabetes medication and were shot for looting – would that happen?

If it had been long enough, probably you'd get a few vigilante crazies. I'm more inclined to let that slide because it worked story-wise, and it was fiction.

Lucy:?

New Zealand is a group of islands that sits astride the boundary between two major tectonic plates. It is therefore highly vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanism, landslips, and tsunamis. While the consequences of earth processes on human communities in modern times are beginning to be?

The internet won't fail though? It was designed to withstand nuclear war, so surely earthquakes and supervolcanoes wouldn't break it.

But will the surviving alpha species – cockroaches – be able to operate the computers (and generate the power)?

I have a wind up torch too, it's part of the wind up radio that sits in my garage workshop (no cable to hog limited outlets and get in the way of power tools). At a pinch I can smash the window and grab it from outside. Not?

My self-built house has ridden out – it moved like a ship – a 6.7. Not a single book fell off my many many shelves.?

Water cylinder seismic-strapped

Emma may seek advice..

Caleb D'Anvers – cool! I find the subject fascinating too- if you want, I have one of Catherine Chague-Goff's papers where she investigates a meteor-generated site (supposedly 15th century)?

Russ, I wish I had sent you that assessment of the effects of a new vent in the Auckland field years ago when I first found it. Was ignorance bliss?

What makes you think I'm not still ignoring it?

Basically, the whole of Yellowstone is a volcano. A volcano so big, you can only see the whole thing when you're in orbit. Apparently it's overdue for another blow.

Calling Yellowstone overdue is really just fear-mongering. It's based on three data points: the VEI 8 eruptions 2.1Ma, 1.3Ma and?

"Locals Audition for Darwin Awards During Melbourne Flash Flood"

Find religion, misunderstand power of moving water

It's pretty hard to plan for an unspecific emergency. There's virtually no assumption you can make, including whether or not your preparations will even be available. I guess mental preparation is the only thing?

To my mind it's just another reason to have household roof fed watertanks.

I doubt the PET bottle sterilizing process and wouldn't have anyone use it if there was any alternative.

I think most people who do use it don't have much alternative. In a disaster, I think I'd risk it. If it was that or just drinking dirty water....

Scrap that, this one has wireless internet access, so we can keep checking on PAS.

And Wegelin has done a bit more(2001) and more (2008). Obviously there was a concern about plasticisers leaching but it appears not to be any more than 'normal' bottled water.

Oh well, long term degenerative disease is the least of our worries I guess when the big one comes.

But will the surviving alpha species – cockroaches – be able to operate the computers (and generate the power)?

I recently read somewhere (anybody?) that the survival of cockroaches after nuclear war is a myth.

Apparently, butterflies will inherit the earth.

Nice.

I'd be pretty amazed if humans couldn't pull through. We're pretty resourceful, and still the only species capable of massive scale coordinated action.

I don't know about that last claim. Some termites live in colonies of several million individuals and build mounds up to 9 metres high.

And they self-organise?

Long time since I read Eugene Marais' "The Soul of the White Ant" – must do so again soon.

Termite queens? Surely that's the ultimate central government...

Heh, except termite queens don't govern anything.

I don't know about that last claim. Some termites live in colonies of several million individuals and build mounds up to 9 metres high.

Yeah ok then, I'll change that "Humans are the only species capable of novel massive scale coordinated action". Which would probably help us a lot during?

And Ben Wilson has hit the nail on the head as to what what humans can do -change behaviour (well, some behaviours) in new circumstances.

And Ben Wilson has hit the nail on the head as to what what humans can do -change behaviour (well, some behaviours) in new circumstances.

Except apparently 99% of scientists agreeing about global climate change and it's dangers. Still up for grabs that one.

Except apparently 99% of scientists agreeing about global climate change and it's dangers. Still up for grabs that one.

I'm 99% sure humans will survive global warming. Other species...not so sure.

A 9+ megaquake or a massive tsunami or a super-volcanic eruption leaves buggerall room for denials...

*I?

That bottleneck had nothing to do with AGW: what is becoming more & more certain is that a *lot* of humans will die when it happens.

In that?

equals losses of what to whom?

Yes. It's not local warming, unfortunately. So it's likely that a lot of the casualties and the flooded and the displaced will live thousands of miles away from the greatest contributors to the problem.

But there are big losses from trying to reverse it, too. The entire world economy?