In which she mentions things she forgot to mention

[zeborah]

• Tents in people's front/back-yards. I think that most of these are less because of the house being unsafe and more because it's more peaceful to sleep on the ground than inside a house during aftershocks. Not sure about the caravans
• Mental health posters up everywhere encouraging people to keep active, connect with friends&co, etc. Reminds me of wartime propaganda except, y'know, friendlier
• Fruitcake for morning tea at church provided by a church in Wellington.

Also things I didn't forget to mention, they just happened:

• My gas fire is certified safe. Yay not freezing my toes off! (It's turned antarctic out there.)
• Do want: Christchurch company creates quake warning system. This should be publicly funded and installed on every computer everywhere. Don't care about liability (though I like to think they have the sense to build in a bunch of redundancy), I'll sign a waiver; something's better than nothing. Also I'm already thinking about software features, like you could opt in to random earthquake drills.

Comments

[cyphomandra]

The problem I have with this proposed quake warning system (sorry if this sounds all wet-blankety!) is false alarms, which I note the piece didn't address at all. As they showed, shaking their sensor boxes sets off an alarm - so what happens when a car drives past them? Or a herd of cows? Or someone jumps next to them? Usually this is dealt with by triangulating signals from multiple sensors, but what they seemed to show was that this company is planning on putting in just half a dozen or so sensors for the whole South Island. Maybe the true alarm to false alarm ratio will be acceptable in Chch in the short term, but that's unlikely to persist.

I do think the Japanese system sounds great. I would be thrilled to have it here. But it would be best done through our existing seismic detection network (Japan's system uses over 2000 seismographs), and it would need major government commitment - I poked around on-line and found a quote of $US145 million and ten years to set up something similar in California. I think it's worthwhile, but I suspect our current government would favour dubious private enterprises.

(also, this page
is fascinating in terms of how the Japanese system works, and when alerts get triggered)

[zeborah]

I was hoping/assuming that the map was an oversimplification and that at each point they'd have a small bunch of sensors that could a) triangulate and b) be cross-redundant in case one breaks down (which will of course happen).

I think the best/surest way would be for the (or a) system to be nationalised, and the signals to use an open API, and then anyone can write/tweak/share/sell/buy whatever software(s) they like for whatever devices. But nationalisation under National? <sigh>