Sound the alarm - if it has not already been stolen.
Thieves are targeting Auckland's tsunami sirens, despite the fact they cannot apparently be modified to play music.
But it is leaving some areas without an early warning system if disaster is looming.
Adam Maggs from Auckland Emergency Management told Checkpoint if the sirens are being used for trendy "battles," the thieves are out of luck.
"We've heard about this siren battling but interestingly our technicians have said that these sirens are specifically designed for alerting so there's no way that they can be basically retrofitted for playing music.
"Essentially, they're getting a piece of scrap medal once they pull these things off the pole."
Siren battles have become popular entertainment among some.
"I believe it can be a sort of competitive situation that plays out," Maggs said.
Remixes of high-pitched reggae music or other songs are played over horn speakers or public address systems, which adherents call "sirens", and are then attached to cars or sometimes bikes. These groups also compete with each other at all hours of the night.
Siren battles have become popular in parts of Aotearoa. Photo: LDR / Justin Latif
"What's disappointing is in the last six months alone we've had 31 siren units stolen from the network, which basically means 40 percent of our siren network has been compromised through either vandalism - trying to get them off and unsuccessful, or the theft of them outright."
The sirens are obsolete in many ways, Maggs said, supplanted by things such as the Mobile Alert System.
The sirens are hard to source and have to be purchased offshore - and they are actually discontinued models, as well.
"They're basically dated technology. We actually installed them back prior to the council amalgamation in 2008, 2009, so the units themselves are just about at their design life end date.
"That creates a lot of challenges for us as well in terms of do we replace them, do we decommission them?"
However, they are still in use, even though not all of Auckland has tsunami sirens.
"There's already other ways of warning people.
"In the last decade of course we've seen the evolution of the Emergency Mobile Alert which is a very effective way to communicate with our public; social media, television, and of course, radio.
"We've got a strategy for a region-wide alerting approach. However we're being driven because of this vandalism to just consider now potentially the decommissioning of the legacy siren system and looking at something that's more suitable."
Still, not everyone is on the internet or has a mobile phone, he noted.
Maggs said they are working closely with police and the public over the thefts.
"We've also taken security measures to try and make the units much harder to remove from the poles. However, that's still not preventing people from having a go, and trying to pull them off the poles.
"The other big risk is that these things are wired to the electrical network so they're dealing with 230 volts minimum, 400 volts by playing around with these units.
"It's a risk to themselves in terms of their health and safety as well.
"I would say look, you know, leave them alone ... find something else to do with your time."
