Having looked at the likelihood of Ireland being hit by a natural disaster at some point in the future, we feel that the current situation has many deficiencies. The Irish Government must implement a suitable Disaster Response Model in order to protect the citizens of this country, and they should do it soon.
We would all play a role in such a plan, and we should all understand what it is that we could do and should do if such an event is to occur. Our country is totally unprepared for an event of this scale and every effort should be made to implement a plan that, would save countless lives when a Tsunami hits Ireland.
The Geological Survey of Ireland also share our opinion that not enough has been done in the formulation of a disaster plan and the they are lobbying to the government for:
• A seabed seismic network capable of providing warnings of events thousands of kilometres as well as more locally.
• A network of tsunameters, sophisticated seafloor pressure gauges that can detect the passage of tsunami waves overhead and transmit information in real-time to a central control unit.
• A risk management strategy involving international monitoring and coordination, ongoing risk assessments and a programme of geophysical, geological and oceanographic research.
• A central control unit, which would receive real-time information from the seismic and tsunameter networks, and would be responsible for identifying potential tsunami events.
• A public warning system would be managed by the central control unit.
• A programme of education developed to make the public aware of tsunami risk and the appropriate action in case of an alert.
If all this was put in place, Ireland would have a Disaster Response Model to rival the worlds best.
We were all shocked by the images we saw on the news of the 2004 "Sumatran" Tsunami, people had no warning, were taken by surprise and died as a result of a poor disaster response model, do we want to let this happen to us?
