Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

Is there a Tsunami Alarm in Newport....?

(In a comment in a below article Dick Garvey asked the above question)

The answer simple .... No there is not. The "WHY NOT?" is what we are going to explain as we have heard it from the Fire officials, police officers and fellow CERT members and even from the scientists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. I can't say exactly who said what but I can give you the run down on the general consensus.

First you need to go back a few articles and remember the difference between a NEAR Tsunami and a FAR Tsunami. This is critical to understanding why Newport chose not to buy a horn.

A FAR Tsunami originates somewhere on the Pacific Rim of Fire well away from the coast of Oregon. Most Likely in Alaska or the Aleutian islands. With this type of Tsunami destruction will be just as bad depending on its size as a NEAR Tsunami. BUT.... BUT.... We have a wonderful advantage here. We have monitoring stations and tsunami bouys that will let us know the wave is coming. We will know by at least 3 hours. The radio and TV will be awash with this warning. Still one wonders what if it is in the middle of the night when most everyone is tucked in their beds with vissions of sugar plums in their heads? Here is where that horn would be a welcome addition to the warning system. The officials feel that the acoustics and shape of our coast would render the horn ineffectual for many parts of Newport. So in addition to the radio and TV the police, fire and CERT teams will be going through the neighborhods warning folks too. Now there is one heck of a warning system that you can buy for about $45 and it is called a NOAA Emergency Radio. This radio will will be the first to receive the warning and it sets off a hellacious alarm in your home that a zombie could not sleep through. I have one and can speak from experience. In our community Joan Corson, Larry Henson and myself have one. Jacky is a block captian and so is Joan. They will activate the Neighborhood watch phone tree and everyone should be notified in 10 minutes or so. The CERT team will activate and start emergency proceedures. It would be nice if more of you had one of these radios. Each one in the park just means another assurance that everyone here will be notified. 3 is pretty skimpy but that's what we have.

That takes care of the Far Tsunami.


Enter the Dragon...... The 1000lb gorrilla. The Near Tsunami.

No horn, no radio, no neighborhood watch, no tv is going to warn you... NADA!

YOUR ONLY WARNING WILL BE A MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE HERE ! (estimated by scientists to be a 9.2) It could happen in your next breath or sometime in the next 200 years according to the geologic record. It last happened in January of 1700. Geologically speaking there has been one eveery 300 to 500 years. As you can see we are presently 6 years into the window.

Once again your warning is the earthquake. 12 to 15 minutes later the Tsunami will arrive. With that large of a quake the roads are likely to be a mess (all torn up). You must get above 40 ft above sea level but the tsunami maps say 50 because there could be a high tide at the same time! Most of the land around Newport is high enough for instance at my home on Windmill my GPS says it is 235 ft. Stay away from beaches and the creeks. The bridge is not expected to stand the force of the Tsunami. Most of South Beach will be inundated. If you are there get to high ground.

AS you can see in the last scenario a horn would be useless as whoever went to set it off probably wouldn't get there in time after the earthquake to turn it on.