Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

Tsunami

At 1:00pm a small group of CERT people from Lost Creek and Longview Hills plus some volunteer firemen and the fire chief and his assistant met at the Fire Station today. The Chief had called us to brief us on a job we had all volunteered to do.

Our Chief had been tasked with getting the word out to the folks about the Tsunami Inundation Zone. That is the land that will be covered by a 30ft wall of water when the Juan de Fuca plate slides under the North American plate 30 miles off of our beaches. That word is from the scientists and the science says we are now in the recurring geologic window for that to happen.

The chief was responsible for the drawing of the Tsunami maps you have seen around. On the Newport side of the Yaquina River it pretty much means stay away from the beaches. But South Beach is so low that much of it will be lost. That includes the Yaquina Bridge. A lot of it is built on sand and makes it a target for liquefaction during the coming earthquake.

So this tiny group will set out in the morning to South Beach to pass out the Tsunami Zone maps, answer questions and point to routes out of the area. The problems there are larger than life. The science says past earthquakes of this nature are in the neighborhood of a 9.2 on the Richter Scale. No one alive today has been in such a quake.. It's that huge. We can expect massive structural damage from the quake.. Ten minutes after the quake a 30ft Tsunami is expected to hit our shores completely inundating most of South Beach and ripping out the bay bridge. Roads most likely will be impassable. Escape will have to be done by foot.

To establish safe zones the fire chief took the scientific figure of a 30ft wave and added 10ft more to that figure in case it came at high tide and then he said he took the pessimistic view and added 10 more ft to that figure because it made him feel better. Using topographic maps the areas of safety were drawn.

In South Beach the hill that the bridge abuts reaches a safe altitude. On the other hand it is really just a sand dune.

Who can say where you will be if this tragic event happens? If you are at breakfast or shopping in South Beach where would you go? You have 10 minutes....

My heart goes out to the people who are in the rest home on the way out to Idaho Point. They are in Wheel Chairs.... They have ten minutes. When one of the group asked about them we all knew the answer.. Even the person asking.

What about the Condos being built on top of the marsh just in front of the rest home? How could our government allow such a thing to be built there?

The chief said I hope folks just give a few minutes thought to what they are going to do.. I've had trouble sleeping nights...

tomorrow I write how it went.