Tsunami warning triggers evacuations...

Japan Earthquake triggers west coast tsunami warning

Local emergency officials say this morning’s tsunami warning went relatively smooth in the Florence area. Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue Chief John Buchanan says it’s because they’ve been working on developing a tsunami response plan for the past five years.
200 – “I think it’s paid off, our EOC opened up smoothly. Police and Fire worked in concert out on the roadways, again, keeping our public safe. At this point we’re very satisfied with the way our EOC operated and where we operated.”

The Emergency Operations Center opened just after midnight. Despite estimates that the first tsunami surge wasn’t expected until after seven AM on the West Coast, the decision was made to begin evacuations just before three when the first evacuation siren was sounded. At the same time, the “Community Emergency Notification System” or “Senz” (CENS) was activated, prompting computerized calls to landline phones that have already been identified as being in the tsunami inundation zone. At least two more siren activations were made over the course of the next several hours, and police and firefighters went through impacted areas notifying residents that they needed to get out. Emergency shelters at Three Rivers Casino and the Florence Events Center were opened and evacuees rode out the warning until they were allowed back to their homes about 10:45.

Emergency officials say this morning’s tsunami warning went smoothly from their standpoint, but Fire Chief John Buchanan says, as in life, nothing ever goes perfectly.
201 – “Oh we’ve learned things… oh absolutely… “

But, he says, for the most part, things went according to plan. One shortcoming that he noticed is the public education aspect of tsunami planning. When the sirens went off, he says many people didn’t know if their home was in an inundation zone or whether they should evacuate.
202– “If there’s one big problem out there, is, you probably reached 10% of the people knowing that they were in inundation zones. The other 90% were calling in asking… is my house in an inundation zone?”

April is earthquake and tsunami awareness month. Buchanan says they’ll be putting together more outreach and education opportunities to let people know what to do in the event of an emergency.

One of the things that did happen was the activation of emergency shelters. Several hundred people crowded into the theater at the Florence Events Center early this morning. One of them was Carol Bennett. She lives in the Mariner’s Village subdivision off Rhododendron Drive and said she was surprised to learn she needed to evacuate. Her daughter called her last night and they talked about the earthquake in Japan and whether or not there would be an evacuation order.
215 – “11:00 I talked to my daughter and I almost went to Eugene last night. If I had, I’d have gotten a whole night’s sleep instead of just a couple hours.”

The evacuation order was lifted about 10:40 this morning.

Transportation officials were prepared this morning. O-Dot dispatched crews to aid in evacuation and provided electronic reader boards on routes leading to the coast advising people to stay away. Rick Little says they also had maintenance and engineering crews standing by.
208 – “All of our maintenance crews are capable of doing a first level inspection of the bridge to make sure it is safe and we have bridge engineers mobilized to take a look if we do encounter any serious problems. Right now it looks pretty good.”

No problems were reported and crews quickly removed warning signs by early afternoon.


Taking a look at Coast Radio Sports…

The Oregon State Beavers were eliminated from the Men’s Pac-10 Basketball tournament last night, falling to number one seed Arizona 78-69. The top-seeded Wildcats will advance to play fourth-seeded Southern Cal this afternoon in the first semi-final.

The Oregon Ducks will face Washington in the second semi… Oregon routed number two seed UCLA 76-59. EJ. Singler scored a career high 24 points. Tonight’s game is set to tip off at 8:40. The pregame show on KCST will be at eight.