LOCAL OFFICIALS REVIEW TSUNAMI RESPONSE

Clatsop County hosted officials from local cities and other entities Friday, March 18 for a review of the local response to the recent tsunami emergency.

Participants from Astoria, Cannon Beach, Gearhart, Seaside and Warrenton as well as Oregon State Police, Red Cross, National Weather Service, Oregon Department of Transportation, Providence Seaside Hospital and Sunset Empire Transportation District discussed successes and shortcomings in the March 11 event, which saw hundreds of residents and visitors evacuate low-lying areas in the early morning hours as a result of the tsunami generated by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan.

There were no reports of any damage or injuries in Clatsop County from tsunami-related waves or tidal surges. But officials said the event provided a valuable learning experience.

The county’s response began at 12:30 a.m. when Emergency Management Director Dean Perez and Deputy Director Gene Strong, already alerted to the Japan quake by the evening news, activated the county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC). About 20 minutes later, the National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an official warning for the West Coast, and later sent out projections for waves of up to almost 5 feet for some Clatsop County oceanfront areas.

At about 2 a.m. the county and City of Seaside began sending out phone calls to households in affected areas through their respective “reverse-9-1-1” emergency notification systems, alerting people to the tsunami warning and informing them to prepare for evacuation. The cities of Cannon Beach, Gearhart and Seaside activated their emergency sirens. Shelters were opened in Cannon Beach, Seaside and the Lewis and Clark area.

Some participants at Friday’s meeting said one problem was that it wasn’t clear where the county’s EOC was located. Some people initially went to Rilea Armed Services Training Center in Warrenton, where the county has secured space to serve as its EOC during major events like a tsunami. But problems with non-compatible telephones there mean the facility isn’t currently usable as a result, county emergency staff decided to direct the local response from the Emergency Management office at the county administrative building at 800 Exchange St. in Astoria.

Other participants noted there was no single authority coordinating the closure of area beaches. By law Oregon’s beaches fall under the authority of the state highway department, but cities also have jurisdiction on beaches within their boundaries, while some local beaches lie within the boundaries of state parks like Fort Stevens in Warrenton.

The Oregon State Police, with assistance from an OSP SWAT team that happened to be training at Camp Rilea, patrolled some beaches to get people to leave and closed a number of public beach access points, while city police departments also urged people to move away from the shore. But some people returned to the beach at other locations while the tsunami alert was still in effect, and some officials said they were not aware of the status of beach closures elsewhere.

Each city maintains authority over not only beach closures but also evacuations within their jurisdictions. On March 11, Cannon Beach, Gearhart and Seaside each sounded their tsunami sirens and urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate, while Warrenton, after weighing the information from the Tsunami Warning Center, elected not to issue an evacuation notice.

County Manager Duane Cole said the county and cities could address many of the jurisdictional questions through intergovernmental agreements that would establish clearer areas of responsibility for each government and agency.

County Public Health Director Margo Lalich said that local plans for evacuating residents of nursing homes and other vulnerable people were activated and worked well.

Perez said the input from the meeting would be reviewed and used to improve response plans. A major factor in effective preparation is relationships between the key players, he said.

“We need to continue to build on those relations, in the county and with neighboring counties,” he said.