Tsunami text alert a success in Taranaki

Taranaki Civil Defence is pleased its tsunami warning system has entered the cyber age.

February's tsunami warning ultimately proved little more than a live exercise, but Taranaki Civil Defence Emergency Management Group controller David Lean said it proved the worth of the region's text alert system.

A mid-morning text alert was sent to 3188 Taranaki subscribers on February 28, advising them of the national tsunami warning and to seek further information from the radio or the Taranaki Regional Council website.

Mr Lean said website traffic more than doubled as people checked the tsunami bulletins, which were updated during the day.

Those updates were also fed to local studios of the two main commercial radio networks, which broadcast them as regional break-outs from regular programming.

"We're confident that between the text alerts and the great co-operation of the radio networks, we got our message to as many people as possible," said Mr Lean.

TRC website hits on February 28 totalled 1546, well above normal weekend traffic.

Anyone can subscribe to the free alert service by texting OPTN TCD to 2678.

- © Fairfax NZ News