Meetings hosted jointly by Civil Defence, the Waikouaiti Coast Community Board and Neighbourhood Support in Karitane and Waitati on Monday and Tuesday will inform people of potential hazards on the north coast, personal preparedness, Civil Defence's role, and the importance of neighbourhood support.
The meeting will canvas a raft of potential disasters, with the focus on tsunami.
Waikouaiti Coast Community Board chairman Alasdair Morrison said he decided to organise the meetings after the deadly Samoan and Tongan tsunamis last September. Some locals expressed concern they were not adequately prepared if a tsunami hit.
The tsunami scare in Otago and other parts of New Zealand in February, after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile, also raised awareness.
Civil Defence training officer Glenn Mitchell said the wide, shallow coastal shelf off Dunedin made it less likely a powerful tsunami would form.
The north coast was the most vulnerable area.
He suggested it would take only a metre-high wave at high tide for water to go across the Warrington spit.
Mr Mitchell was relaxed about the furore surrounding February's warning, when people who headed to the beach were chastised in the media for not heeding warnings. He was confident that in a major event warnings would be sufficient to ensure people did get away.
"People aren't stupid," he said.
Tsunamis were not becoming more common but awareness of their danger had grown.
Warning systems were beefed up after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, meaning offshore earthquakes that could have passed without note before could spark tsunami warnings.
• Meetings: Monday, 6.30 to 8.30pm at Karitane Hall; Tuesday 6.30pm to 8.30pm at Waitati Hall.
