For Todd Morrison and his fellow emergency responders, it was a horror show in slow motion.

News broke Jan. 23 that an earthquake, initially reported as a magnitude 8.0, had struck 175 miles southeast of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska at a depth of 6 miles at 12:31 a.m. local time. The report prompted a tsunami warning that forced people to flee to higher ground in the middle of the night.

More importantly for Morrison and other emergency personnel in East Jefferson County, the National Tsunami Warning Center predicted that the first wave could reach our shores before 6 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

“We were hearing that Port Angeles could see the effects as early as 5:30 a.m., with Port Townsend to follow around 5:55 a.m.,” said Morrison of the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management (DEM). “We had no idea how big this could be.”

IMMEDIATE ALERT

City and county public works personnel were alerted immediately, and the county DEM was on the phone with the emergency management departments for Clallam County and the state. Those departments were communicating with the National Tsunami Warning Center, but the center’s website was yielding little information.

“The site was dragging,” Morrison said. “It was taking forever to load. I was at home at 2 a.m., getting calls and trying to get the information people needed. It was concerning.”

When the initial wave hit land on Kodiak, it was less than a foot high, but Morrison was mindful of warnings that deep-water waves could prove more powerful when they came ashore.

“And still, we needed more information,” said Morrison, who noted that the DEM had expanded its communication efforts to cover not only Clallam County, but Grays Harbor as well, as Lynn Sterbenz, DEM director, worked the phones.

“We were getting ready to bring our teams in. Frankly, it was more than a little frustrating.”

In the end, what had been a tsunami advisory for the coastal regions of Washington, Oregon and California, including the Puget Sound region, was downgraded to a tsunami watch, and then called off altogether.

LESSONS LEARNED

“It was canceled for us around 4:30 a.m.,” Morrison said. “You learn something from every event, but this one was disappointing, in that we were sending messages for more than two hours. We didn’t want to start a general panic at 3 a.m., but one of our emergency volunteers was at the homeless shelter, and he knew that even a small wave would inundate it.”

Although the federal government happened to be shut down during the earthquake and its aftermath, Morrison doubts this was the cause, and suspects that the Tsunami Warning Center was simply flooded with requests for information.

Morrison assured the public that the DEM has already developed closer contacts with the Tsunami Warning Center as a result of this incident. He also directed area residents to an evacuation brochure developed by the state and to be updated this year with even more recent data. The brochure is currently posted online at

dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_tsunami_evac_port_townsend.pdf

Morrison also sent The Leader a walking evacuation map, jointly developed by the Department of Natural Resources and the state Department of Emergency Management, to provide information on where and how to evacuate areas that may be inundated by a large-scale “Cascadia event,” measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale.

TSUNAMI WARNINGS

“Please be clear, this is for a worst-case scenario,” Morrison said.

Morrison also supplied a link to the revised “Think, Plan, Do” booklet the county has created to help people prepare for specific emergencies, at

www.co.jefferson.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/3277

Morrison explained that tsunami warning levels come in three tiers, as follows:

• A tsunami watch is issued when a tsunami may later impact the watch area. Emergency management officials and the public should prepare to take action.

• The next level, a tsunami advisory, is more urgent. It’s issued when a tsunami – with the potential to generate strong currents or waves dangerous to those in or very near the water – is imminent, expected or occurring. Significant inundation is not expected for areas under an advisory. Appropriate actions to be taken by local officials may include closing beaches, evacuating harbors and marinas, and repositioning ships to deep waters.

• The most urgent level, a tsunami warning, is issued when a tsunami with the potential to generate widespread inundation is imminent, expected or occurring. Dangerous coastal flooding, accompanied by powerful currents, is possible. Appropriate actions to be taken by local officials may include evacuating low-lying coastal areas and repositioning ships to deep waters.

“Because of our location, we encourage everyone to prepare their households to be self-sufficient for 30 days,” Morrison said. “Access to this area may be affected dramatically in many ways, reducing the availability of supplies and services.”

Think, plan, do

To download a copy of a “Think, Plan, Do” booklet for Jefferson County and specific emergencies, go online to

www.co.jefferson.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/3277

or jeffcoeoc.org