New system instantly sends tsunami warnings
CANNON BEACH, Ore. – If the computer on Chad Sweet’s desk erupts into a screeching whoop, the coastal resort manager can learn in a flash if a tsunami is headed his way.
It’s a newly available warning system he got last week to give instant, targeted warning to areas of the coast that might be threatened by a killer wave.
The Connect & Protect system distributes NOAA-National Weather Service alerts from a base in Alaska free and almost instantly to government agencies such as emergency response units.
Now, it is being offered to motels, schools, restaurants, hospitals and other businesses and organizations responsible for the lives of other people.
Organizers say individuals will be able to get it on their cell phones or pagers within a few weeks.
They say it is the only targeted, real-time tsunami warning system operating. In 2004 it was a finalist in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government homeland security innovation of the year award.
It would give people such as Sweet, who manages the 83-unit beachfront Surfsand Resort, or beach lifeguards, an automated and instant heads-up in the event of a quake that could cause a tsunami.
So far it is being distributed in Tillamook and Clatsop counties on the north Oregon coast and is to be tried in El Segundo, Calif.
People notified of a potential tsunami by computer also will get maps with evacuation routes.
Connect & Protect was designed and is run by the Portland-based Regional Alliance for Infrastructure and Network Security, or RAINS, which describes itself as a private-public partnership formed to “accelerate development and deployment of innovative technology for homeland security.”
The project is funded by $100,000 in federal homeland security funds distributed by the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.
“In the case of the Indonesia earthquake (of March 28) the system had it an hour before news media did,” said RAINS founder Charles Jennings. He estimated the alarm could be spread within 60 seconds of the time the information reaches the West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.
While a tsunami from a distant quake could take hours to get to Oregon beaches, one from the offshore Cascadia Subduction Zone could do so in 15 to 30 minutes.
Jennings said about 14 users on the north coast have the computer program so far.
It can give a motel or restaurant manager instant information that will allow him or her to do what is necessary. And if there is a quake that will not produce a tsunami, it will also tell them that, Jennings said.