When I view photos and video of devastated coastal communities in Japan due to the tsunami back in March of 2011 and then read an article of a coastal community in Oregon about parents starting petitions to not move elementary school children out of  a high tsunami risk area, I get a bad feeling we have no clue.  If someone has looked at the shake maps and inundation zones that were produced years ago to help coastal communities prepare for a Cascadia event, there is no way you would sign a petition to keep elementary children in that area.

Cannon Beach School

The Cannon Beach Elementary School is the Quonset-style building attached to another structure. The tsunami that cleared the school playground of equipment was generated by an earthquake in Alaska and the wave traveled down the west coast.  A rupture of the Cascadia fault line just off the west coast will generate a tsunami 3-7 times larger than the run-up in 1964 and arrive in 15-20 minutes. The closest high ground is across the creek in the picture, however the bridge (washed out in this picture from the 1964 surge) is unlikely to survive the projected Cascadia earthquake.

February’s National Geographic magazine features an article with more correlations between what occurred with recent major tsunami and what is likely to occur off the west coast of the United States.  Japan is the best prepared country in the world for earthquakes and tsunami events, we are woefully unprepared.  The public and government officials needs to research the state of preparedness that was present in Japan, the geology and geography of where communities were devastated and decide how serious they want to take preparedness.

School bags are seen at the tsunami-hit Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan March 28, 2011. About eighty percent of the students and teachers were killed or are missing after the school was devastated by a tsunami following the March 11 earthquake.