Many blown away by Blowout

Taranaki Blowout has touched a chord with many of the thousands who took part, Civil Defence officials say.

They say feedback has been overwhelmingly positive since the end of the internet-based community exercise, which was based on a Mount Taranaki eruption scenario and ran for six weeks until late October.

More than 1,200 people, from households totalling around 3,000 people, took part by subscribing to email alerts when the Taranaki Blowout website was updated with new developments in the fictional eruption. Classes in 56 Taranaki schools also took part, with teachers downloading specially developed teaching units from the website.

Nearly 12,000 emails were sent out in the run-up to and during the campaign.

"Around 90 participants took part in a follow-up survey, and just about all indicated they'd taken action to increase their disaster preparedness as a result of the exercise," says Taranaki Blowout spokesman Mike Langford. "That was one of the main aims of Blowout."

He says a disaster preparedness survey is planned for summer, with results to be compared a similar survey last summer.

"We're fairly confident that levels of preparedness will have increased as a result of events this year - Taranaki Blowout, the Christchurch earthquake, the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Merapi, which many volcanologists regard as a geological 'twin' of Mount Taranaki."

Mr Langford says the feedback from Taranaki Blowout participants has included useful suggestions for any similar campaigns in future, and the level of approval was high.

Feedback comments include:

•"We held a competition for the best survival tip and the winning tip was 'get to know your neighbours as you might need to work together in an emergency'."
•"I felt it was a really good way of raising my family's awareness and preparedness in an unpressured way. We can continue to 'get ready' at our own pace."
•"It was a great way to get everyone talking about the 'what if' scenario. It became a common theme over morning tea."
•"Taranaki Blowout was a huge success for us as a kura. We now have our survival kits started, and we are definitely more aware of the procedures to take as a school should we be caught with an ash fall. The tamariki have learnt a lot about volcanoes as well as personal safety. Thanks to you all for the really informative website which made it easy for our planning and resource gathering. We looked at all the links and found out many things we were not aware of ..."
•"I really enjoyed the information. It took it from the abstract 'oh the volcano might blow' to being really detailed about what exactly that would mean."
•"Checklists were useful, and caused much discussion in the office, and lots of commitments to prepare ... The detailed scenario descriptions were effective in communicating developments to the team. Thanks."
•"This is awesome. It has helped us to get started on our survival kit, which I have been meaning to do for ages. And has helped with water storage, as I have six people in our family. That's a lot of water."

Taranaki Blowout was organised by the region's Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, with whom Mr Langford serves as the Taranaki Regional Council's Senior Emergency Management Officer. The New Zealand Red Cross New Plymouth branch was a partner in the exercise, which was also supported by GNS Science, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, M&O Pacific, Powerco, Methanex, Pace Engineering, Classic Hits and More FM.

The exercise material will remain permanently on the internet. Go to www.taranakiblowout.org.

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