It goes without saying that those who live close to the beach are in a tsunami risk zone.

There was a lot of discussion at the time of the 26 December 2004 tsunami that affected parts of south-east Asia about whether the Tasman Sea coast or the Pacific coast was riskier — the belief is the latter, and we saw the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. Although the risk level is slight, it’s there.

Everyone knows that the Waikanae River up as far as Otaihanga can flood when there’s an abundance of “Dougherty’s precious water’ and the Waimeha Stream near the beach can rise too. You don’t want to hang around if there’s both that and a big earthquake at the same time. “If an earthquake is strong OR long, get gone.”