The tragedy unfolding in Japan should be a sobering reminder to elected officials, emergency managers and public safety providers all along the coastline of the United States, but I would like to address Oregon as I am more familiar with the threat.  Japan experienced a nearshore tsunami due to the earthquake close off their coastline, as different from the distant tsunami threat it posed to the west coast of Oregon. Likewise in January of 1700, the Cascadia Subduction Zone ruptured, causing a massive earthquake, creating a nearshore tsunami for Oregon and posed a distant tsunami threat for Japan.

Evacuation is a protective strategy, but not without risk. Without adequate traffic control and even fuel, evacuation routes become parking lots. Hurricane Rita directly killed 7 people, but 23 patients from a nursing home evacuating from the hurricane were killed when the bus carrying them caught fire.  Lesson to learn, use evacuation wisely and understand the risks.

Oregon’s tsunami risk is well understood, tsunami hazard zone signs are posted and tsunami inundation maps are readily available.  Oregon is at risk of two tsunami threats, a nearshore event which is recognizable by an earthquake strong enough to make you fall on your rear and unable to stand.   Mother nature has a sense of humor in this case; she says run for your life because in 15-30 minutes (depends on where you are in relation to the fault line rupture), she will drown anyone within a mile of the coast or not above the expected high water mark.  But she is benevolent to those on the other side of the pacific, giving them the benefit of time, distance and a decent monitoring system to predict the threat to distant shores.

The recent Japan earthquake and the need to evacuate along the Oregon coastline is not a one size fits all answer.  One of the best predictors of future behavior is past behavior, so one of the first things community leaders should ask is what happened the last time a distant event like this occurred?  We have great data from the monster earthquake in Alaska in 1964. As a child in Cannon Beach, I remember waking up to see the beach littered with dead cows after the wave came through during the night, prior to any warning systems being in place.  Cannon Beach with it’s coastal geology and history of inundation from a distant tsunami must look at their risk carefully, and they are one of the more proactive coastal communities in being Tsunami Ready.

People may be watching TV and say..”the wave is passing Hawaii, and it will be here any moment” spurring an irrational need to evacuate.  Tsunamis are impressive in their speed, like that of a jetliner, but if you have ever ridden coach from Hawaii to Portland, it takes forever. Waves generated from distant events now occur when we have much more sophisticated wave height monitoring devices and we have time and data to actually fine-tune evacuation decisions based upon waves passing Hawaii or even working their way up the California coastline.

The bottom line is all tsunamis are not created equal and public safety officials have a tremendous amount of science, current tide projections and local history to guide them into weighing the risk benefit of evacuations. Be careful about throwing the evacuation card too often, it creates needless risk and does not take into account all the factors to consider.  Worst of all, it could create the crying wolf syndrome and when mother nature says run, people won’t pay attention.  On the other hand, I don’t think you can reinforce enough to residents and visitors, put the fear of death in them, when visiting the Oregon Coast and an earthquake knocks them on their butt, they better stop everything else and run for the hills as fast as they can.  That is not a popular message with tourist towns, but picking up a beach littered with dead tourists won’t be real good for business either.