IT WAS A TEST ONLY

IT WAS A TEST! ONLY A TEST...

People have been calling about the TSUNAMI alert this morning. Some folks called here and wanted to know if it was real.

Ed Simon called his contacts and told us that a wrong button was pushed in Astoria. Others called to say they called the radio stations locally and they reported it was only a test. The link on the left of the page for Tsunami Warnings did not mention the test (the link is from NOAA).

The announcement took over all the TV stations on Charter Cable Television but those with satellite TV didn’t hear a thing. We have a NOAA Emergency Broadcast Radio and it sounded a loud, continuous ululating wail until acknowledged.

If you listened closely you would have heard the announcement say near its end that it was a TEST WARNING. Later a follow on announcement came on and clearly stated it was a TEST only.

Personally, I feel that this was a great test of the Disaster Warning system and would like to see it occur on a regular basis. It would be nice though if it was a bit more clear that it was a TEST only so folks would not be as confused. That said, wouldn’t you be happy if you had so much advance warning that you could take the measures needed to protect yourself and your loved ones?

CERT training is teaching 13 of our residents how to deal with this type of disaster right now. You may have had your level of awareness raised by this test. Maybe you could take a moment to reflect on what you would do now if this had been a real emergency.

What would you have done? Here are a few facts to help you...

• According to a satellite mapping program, Google Earth, the elevation at the Thomas residence here at 5706 NE Windmill dr. is 204 feet above sea level.


• Local authorities have told our volunteer fireman, Jim Rose, that a TSUNAMI at Newport would probably be no more than 50ft.

An Earthquake film we watched years ago said that you should have enough water to last several days and that you could use the water in your toilet bowl tank. I’m thinking you could turn off the electricity to your hot water tank and drain it as a source of water too. Another suggestion the film made that I hadn’t heard before was that there will be no banks or ATM’s and that could last for weeks so it was suggested you keep an emergency fund of $1 bills to purchase what you need during the disaster. If you don’t, they suggested, you may end up paying $20 for a half gallon of milk because you don’t have small bills.

What are your ideas and comments?