Otago civil defence emergency management group controller Wayne Scott said yesterday a recent debriefing of civil defence, fire service and police representatives had resolved some "issues" that arose during last month's tsunami alert.
In future, civil defence and emergency service staff would gather at the emergency control centre to discuss tsunami alerts and reach a consensus on the action required.
During last month's alert, civil defence authorities in Oamaru, Balclutha, Invercargill and many other coastal areas around the country gathered at their "activated" emergency control centres.
About 200 people were "actively encouraged" to evacuate from low-lying areas of the Otago coast and police closed beaches and warned 500 people about the possible danger.
However, Dunedin's centre was not activated - civil defence controller Neil Brown monitored developments from home, maintaining throughout there was no risk of a destructive event on the Dunedin coast.
Mr Scott said that at the debriefing it was decided all parties would in future "get together at the time, in the middle of the night or whatever, to understand each other's points of view".
"One of the lessons was that at least if there are different views from different perspectives then the best thing to do is to get together and talk about it - come to a consensus."
The control centre would be activated in future, rather than having the alert dealt with solely via electronic communications.
"If someone's got some issues, at least open it, go and have a yarn about it.
If that means you close it 40 minutes later, so be it."
Dunedin police emergency response group manager Inspector Alistair Dickie would not comment at the time on whether there was a difference between police and civil defence thinking over the level of risk but stood by his decision to close beaches and warn coastal residents.
Mr Scott said the issue raised in the media of "some sort of sense of disjoint" between the city council and police "was quite easily solved" once parties sat down and talked about it.
Discussion had been "very amicable and we're quite relaxed about where it ended up".
Insp Dickie told the Otago Daily Times he was "very satisfied" with the outcome of the debriefing.
"The most constructive way is for multi-agencies to get together; kicking ideas around and brainstorming and making sure things are dealt with correctly."
