When things like this happen strange fish are seen and also found.

We live on an isthmus on the Whangaruru Harbour . On the flat it is just above sea level and if there was a wave it would come from both sides. Luckily we live up on the hill so heaps of people and their animals were up at ours all morning. We all went up to the top of the pa to watch. In the end a few were disappointed that nothing actually happened. LOL.

I guess its a good civil defence practice . We have a lot of older people in our community who had to be notified and moved. If something had happened loads of people would have been affected.

It's a bit scary to think that we are at the mercy of events like this.

My heart goes out to the people in Samoa who are facing devastation as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.

There is a lot of archaeological evidence that giant tsunamis have affected New Zealand in the past (big enough to bowl huge kauri trees) so it's highly likely another one will happen at some time in the future. I am very happy to be over-warned rather than under-warned!

Hopefully this event will have a lot of people thinking about what they would do "in case" of a big one, and planning for the safety of themselves, their families and the vulnerable people in their communities. (What about the elderly couple across the road who don't have a car? What about the woman next door with three little kids whose husband is at work all day? etc etc)

haha what happened? I was getting ready to ride a Jetski to work...sooooo disappointed.

Im staying in whangamata and we got evacuated, cops came around told us to go to higher ground, didnt see anything and had to stay up there for hour or so.

im going to samoa in 7 weeks