Emergency Planning in Ireland

David Office

Do the Irish Government have any plan in the case of a Tsunami type incident in Ireland :eek:

billy the squid

we got iodine tablets

actually i thought that the tactonic plates (sp) were structured differently in the central atlantic than they were in the indian ocean.making a tsunami type of event unlikely

however we are suseptible to severe weather events, and when you consider that when there parts of Donegal are experiencing 24 hour electricity supply for the first time this year now that most of the factories have closed down, the existance of an infrastructure strong enough to withstand events such as this are unlikely.

a couple of flakes of snow tend to throw the country into chaos ffs

simu

There was mention in the Irish Times yesterday of a tidal wave started by an earthquake off the Portuguese coast or somewhere around there in the 18th century that made it to Ireland and was said to have destroyed a castle on the coast of Co. Clare. I can't find any info about it online, though.


[edit]Ah, here's some more info: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/tsunamis.html [/edit]

David Office

The Indian Environment minister said that the reason they had no warning system in place is because
"they would never have expeceted a disaster of this magnitude"
I know the tectonic plates are configured differently - but??

What did you do with the M&Ms as a matter of interest?? :eek:

simu

David Office wrote:

The Indian Environment minister said that the reason they had no warning system in place is because
"they would never have expeceted a disaster of this magnitude"
I know the tectonic plates are configured differently - but??

What did you do with the M&Ms as a matter of interest?? :eek:

Tsunamis are rare and I suppose India was faced with other, more obvious threats to life before this.

I still have my iodine tablets at home, they're a funny piece of kitsch. Strangely, I was the only person in my family to get them - the govt must really love me.

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

David Office

Four hours warning might not be much in many emergencies but in the case of Tsunami it would allow people to get to high ground and well enough inland.
Won't do much for their property though.
Very interesting re. the IT article yesterday.
So what is the consensus - could a major emergency happen here or not??? :eek:

gandalf

There is a far higher chance of an emergancy caused by Sellafield than Ireland being hit by a Tsunami imho.

If an unspecified emergancy occured in the morning no matter what it is I feel this country would be totally unprepared. Look at our hospitals, we get hit by a bit of a flu epidemic and they all nearly grind to a halt. God forbid if anything on the scale of South Asia ever hit us here.

Redleslie2

The canary islands thing.

Scientists fear the eruption of a volcano in the Canary islands could trigger one of the worst disasters ever recorded. Here's our web guide to tsunami

Simon Jeffery
Wednesday August 29, 2001
The Guardian

1. You may not have heard of the mega-tsunami, or even know how it is pronounced, but it could cover Atlantic cities from Rio to New York in up to 50 metres of water.

2. Tsunamis are large waves (like tidal waves) caused by seismic activity such as volcanic eruptions or a vertical displacement of the oceans - by earthquakes, landslides or meteorite strikes.

3. Scientists fear that the big one could come as a rock twice the size of the Isle of Man is thrown off a Canary Islands volcano into the Atlantic.

4. An emergency would follow: after an hour the first waves (up 20 metres high) would hit west Africa, after three Spain and Portugal, followed by Britain and Ireland after six.

5. Waves more than twice that size would simultaneously race west to the Americas.

6. It would be worse than the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. If you find that hard to visualise then think of an Old Spice commercial, but one where you have to use a whole bottle because its going to be a really big night out and you've not showered for a month.

7. Tsunami comes from the Japanese tsu (harbour) and nami (wave). One of the worst disasters engulfed whole villages along the Sanriku coast, Japan, in 1896. A wave more than seven stories high drowned some 26,000 people.

8. How would you save yourself from the killer waves? Generally, you should head to higher ground or the upper stories of tsunami-resistant buildings.

9. Most occur in the Pacific Ocean, where a warning network exists to protect the most vulnerable regions. These two animations show a tsunami speeding to Asia and crashing against the Japanese coast.

10. Now for the good news: Cumbre Vieja, the volcano that could start it all off, is not expected to erupt in the short or medium term. We may be safe for the next century ... but, then again, we may not.

:eek: :eek: :cool: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Keyzer

Heard about the canary island one before, seen a docu on discovery.
Its estimated, if it happens, that it will destroy the eastern sea board of the United States. It boils down to the islands being volcanic and scientists think there maybe a massive landslide, of ginormous proportions which would cause this tsunami. The reason the waves would be so high is as it reachs shallower ground the water is pushed up higher and higher. It was shocking to watch the computer constructions.

On another note, I lived in india for some time, lovely people but they are very slow to move on things and not very motivated.
Even if they had a warning system I fear they would not have acted quickly or accordingly.

David Office

Has anyone ever heard of any risk assessment in relation to Ireland for any major disaster - earthquake / hurricanes etc.

chewy

what sort of natural disaster could ireland face, I think the most likely thing is flooding, particularily inland flooding... and then sellafiled...

theres hasbeen alot of that in recent years hasn't there, in the west... theres been a lack of investment in protection from that but could some of that be down to developement in flood prone places and flash flooding from deforestation?

i think other types of huge disasters could be MRSA in Irish hospitals or epidemic suicide rates?

simu

David Office wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of any risk assessment in relation to Ireland for any major disaster - earthquake / hurricanes etc.

These aren't much of a threat to Ireland but flooding could be a problem.

More info here: http://earth.esa.int/applications/dm/archdm/disman/db/synthesis_reports/SRIreland.html

David Office

Are we being complacent to think that the worst that can happen to Ireland is a bit of flooding every two years.
A previous contributor attached information re. the tail end of a Tsunami that hit Ireland in 1775.
Also there have been tremors in both Ireland and the UK over the past decade.
Now I dont want to sound like an old doom and gloom merchant, but are we excluded from the serious disaster category in Ireland; and to my original question - is the Government prepared for this. Does anyone know?? :eek:

Big Ears

David Office wrote:

but are we excluded from the serious disaster category in Ireland; and to my original question - is the Government prepared for this. Does anyone know?? :eek:

firstly yes we are excluded bar once every couple of hundred/low thousand years , and secondly of course the Government isn't prepared , have you forgotten what country we live in ?

Barry Aldwell

To put it mathematically:
If now = emergency of any kind, we = screwed

There aren't even enough NBC suits for the entire Army, what chance do the civilian populace have in any form of emergency, natural or manmade?

chewy

practical and systems

Indian red tape may have cost lives: Bureacracy vs Capitalism

Indian officials tangled in bureaucratic red tape lost 30 precious minutes after they received an alert from an air force base in a remote island about the tsunami hurtling toward the coast, a government official admitted today

http://breaking.tcm.ie/2004/12/31/story182723.html

ireland red tape inane civil servants never...

David Office

Barry Aldwell wrote:

To put it mathematically:
If now = emergency of any kind, we = screwed

There aren't even enough NBC suits for the entire Army, what chance do the civilian populace have in any form of emergency, natural or manmade?

Do you know that since Sept 11 there has been an Office of Emergency Planning established in DOD and that the Major Accident Emergency Plan is currently being revised??
Does this not give you a warm fuzzy feeling?

billy the squid

David Office wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of any risk assessment in relation to Ireland for any major disaster - earthquake / hurricanes etc.

the most likely disaster to hit ireland in my opinion would be a hurricane. or a severe winter storm (secondary low pressure system) we have had these before resulting in large amounts of damage and fatalities, allbeit not on the scale of hurricane iven and the damage it caused to the Cayman islands and haiti. but it is possible. we have had sever winter storms such as the one on 24 December 1997 and the notorious "night of the big wind" of 1839,as well as remnants of hurricane Charley in 1986 and Hurricane Debbie in the early sixties.

Yes indeed we have had earth tremors, going back longer than a decade. If I remember right, there were tremors being felt in Ireland from a fault in wales back in the late eighties. all it takes is one earth quake to cause a serious amount of damage.

The Canary island theory is also possible, but it could happen either tomorrow or five hundred years from now. no one knows. and who is to say that something could come from the other side of the atlantic. say Monserat. there is an island with a very active volcano.

A cock up at selefield is not beyond the realms of fantasy either, god knows BNFL have screwed up more than once with regard to this nuclear station. Not to mention the large volumes of nuclear powered ships and submarines travelling up and down the Irish Sea.

another possibility is a "big freeze" event similar to the ones of 1962 and 1947. severe snows and frozen water supplies could cause serious problems if this were to happen. you have seen how the country grinds to a halt when they get two days of snow, imagine having to go through three or four months of sub-zero conditions.

David Office

Good article in Sindo today with interviews by two Profs - one from NUI Galway and other from NUI maynooth.
Neither discount a Tsunami occurring in Ireland. One makes mention of the tremor in Wales also.
Does anybody think that the Natural gas exploration off Mayo and Galway could affect the integrity of the plate in that region - thus possibly triggering an earthquake type scenario?? :eek:

Sparks

Does anybody think that the Natural gas exploration off Mayo and Galway could affect the integrity of the plate in that region - thus possibly triggering an earthquake type scenario??

No-one that understands plate tectonics or geology, no. The plates which meet at the mid-Atlantic rift are moving apart, not together like those that caused the earthquake off Sumatra, so they're not a risk. We do get small earthquakes in Ireland, but they're most uncommon. The Canary Island scenario, as said above, is one of those things that could happen but which we couldn't realistically defend against anyway (how do you plan for a 50m tidal wave hitting Dublin on a budget?), and that goes for the other volcanic candidates, or even for meteorite impact in the Atlantic basin which would cause the same problem.

In short, yes it's a risk; but it's pretty far down the list of priorities for us to be worrying about. And some of the stuff that's higher up the list is essential for any disaster planning anyway - can you imagine our health system trying to cope in such a disaster when it can't cope with our current "peacetime" needs?

David Office

Big Ears wrote:

firstly yes we are excluded bar once every couple of hundred/low thousand years , and secondly of course the Government isn't prepared , have you forgotten what country we live in ?

Is is possible that we could be hit with the omnibus edition of these at some stage?? :eek:

David Office

Sparks wrote:

No-one that understands plate tectonics or geology, no. The plates which meet at the mid-Atlantic rift are moving apart, not together like those that caused the earthquake off Sumatra, so they're not a risk. We do get small earthquakes in Ireland, but they're most uncommon. The Canary Island scenario, as said above, is one of those things that could happen but which we couldn't realistically defend against anyway (how do you plan for a 50m tidal wave hitting Dublin on a budget?), and that goes for the other volcanic candidates, or even for meteorite impact in the Atlantic basin which would cause the same problem.

In short, yes it's a risk; but it's pretty far down the list of priorities for us to be worrying about. And some of the stuff that's higher up the list is essential for any disaster planning anyway - can you imagine our health system trying to cope in such a disaster when it can't cope with our current "peacetime" needs?

So answer my original question - do you think the Government is prepared for disasters - even those higher up the list?
Also-
What disasters do you deem to be higher up the list?

Sparks

So to answer David: No, but it doesn't matter in the case of things like tidal waves.

And higher up the list of natural disasters would be things like the coming rise in sea level of up to two or three metres in the next fifty to eighty years (depending on whose climatology figures you accept); reaching peak oil production capacity; hurricanes and other violent weather systems becoming more frequent as a result of global warming; an avian influenza strain crossing species to humans; MRSA becoming more common; resistant TB making a reappearance; Foot&Mouth making a reappearance; and so on. And those are just the "natural" disasters - higher on the overall priority list would be things like fixing the health service, developing the infrastructural systems, tackling the rising cost of availing of the judicial system, tackling the rising level of violent crime, and so on.

David Office

In reply to sparks saying that disaster prepardeness doenst matter in situations like tidal waves - with respect I think that is a bit of a simplistic approach.
Are you saying that we should not plan for any major disaster situations - true we cannot stop the waves approaching - say Dublin - but could we not have
a. Warning systems (maybe linked to a Euro system) - and local alarms.
b. Have a co-ordinated plan to respond to the aftermath of any such disasters - unlike the disjointed one that exists now and is currently being considered for review. This should tie in all of the major emergency services - but for example how do they communicate with each other - they all have different communications systems.
And so on and on and on

Gurgle

David Office wrote:

a. Warning systems (maybe linked to a Euro system) - and local alarms.
b. Have a co-ordinated plan to respond to the aftermath of any such disasters - unlike the disjointed one that exists now and is currently being considered for review. This should tie in all of the major emergency services - but for example how do they communicate with each other - they all have different communications systems.
And so on and on and on

And we can pay for it out of the budget for asteroid strikes. :rolleyes:
We are in more danger of being nuked by pakistan.

is_that_so

billy the squid wrote:

the most likely disaster to hit ireland in my opinion would be a hurricane. or a severe winter storm (secondary low pressure system) we have had these before resulting in large amounts of damage and fatalities, allbeit not on the scale of hurricane iven and the damage it caused to the Cayman islands and haiti. but it is possible. we have had sever winter storms such as the one on 24 December 1997 and the notorious "night of the big wind" of 1839,as well as remnants of hurricane Charley in 1986 and Hurricane Debbie in the early sixties.

Yes indeed we have had earth tremors, going back longer than a decade. If I remember right, there were tremors being felt in Ireland from a fault in wales back in the late eighties. all it takes is one earth quake to cause a serious amount of damage.

The Canary island theory is also possible, but it could happen either tomorrow or five hundred years from now. no one knows. and who is to say that something could come from the other side of the atlantic. say Monserat. there is an island with a very active volcano.

A cock up at selefield is not beyond the realms of fantasy either, god knows BNFL have screwed up more than once with regard to this nuclear station. Not to mention the large volumes of nuclear powered ships and submarines travelling up and down the Irish Sea.

another possibility is a "big freeze" event similar to the ones of 1962 and 1947. severe snows and frozen water supplies could cause serious problems if this were to happen. you have seen how the country grinds to a halt when they get two days of snow, imagine having to go through three or four months of sub-zero conditions.

Wales thing was in 82 I believe, was woken by rattling windows. I was convinced it was a big truck going by. I would add as well that the "big freeze" were the norm until the early 19th century in this part of the world. For over four centuries I think. The Thames was frozen over every year till 1816(not sure if this is correct year) and they held The Thames Fair on it. Agree completely , our destiny is more likely to be man-made. I would much rather see Govt money and planning going into fixing what we do get - floods, high winds etc.

If Armageddon does hit we'll be going under the waves anyway. This was supposedly St. Patrick's dying wish. He wanted to be sure we'd be spared.
:rolleyes:

New Year's resolution to self "Stop watching sensational documentaries and apocalyptic Hollywood movies"

David Office

Gurgle wrote:

And we can pay for it out of the budget for asteroid strikes. :rolleyes:
We are in more danger of being nuked by pakistan.

I dont know what Gurgle thinks we will be paying for that we dont already pay for. We have emergency services with reasonably good equipment - it is just a matter of co-ordinating them and coming up with a plan for their best use in some disaster situation.
Contributors have mentioned the country coming to a halt at the first sign of snow - that shouldnt be the case. There should be a co-ordinated plan to pre-empt this type of situation - not a "jasus lads its snowing - what'll we do now"

Gurgle

David Office wrote:

I dont know what Gurgle thinks we will be paying for that we dont already pay for. We have emergency services with reasonably good equipment - it is just a matter of co-ordinating them and coming up with a plan for their best use in some disaster situation.

That was kind of my point, the bandwagon is rolling towards special emergency plans for natural disasters like tsunamis. A couple of years ago we were worried about meteorites, before that the country was going to disappear beneath the waves with rising sea levels. Before that we had the cold war and a nuclear holocaust to 'plan' for.

These are the kind of threat that do go away if you ignore them.

And yet the most serious threat to the habitability of our little island, the nuclear waste reprocessing facility and dumping ground at sellafield, has been running happily away since the 1960s.

WFT are our emergency services going to do about it if Sellafield gets a 747 parked in the roof ?

'Everybody please take your iodine now'

David Office

Why should any potential disaster (regardless of how remote) be excluded from the planning process. It is the same wagon train that will be dealing with it - with a speciality wagon or two depending on the particular disaster type. So if it is a meteorite or a flood in Timahoe, that threatens life and property, is it not better to have the wagon train hitched up and a map that will show them where to go and what to do once they get there??

Gurgle

David Office wrote:

Why should any potential disaster (regardless of how remote) be excluded from the planning process. It is the same wagon train that will be dealing with it - with a speciality wagon or two depending on the particular disaster type. So if it is a meteorite or a flood in Timahoe, that threatens life and property, is it not better to have the wagon train hitched up and a map that will show them where to go and what to do once they get there??

There will be no plan.

The choice is whether to spend €X billion on no plan or to continue with the current no plan.