Preparing for Tsunamis

Officials from the NOAA National Weather Service are recognizing the city of Lincoln City, Ore., as the first community to become TsunamiReady since last year's tsunami tragedy.

At a ceremony earlier this week, Lincoln City was also named StormReady. These community preparedness programs use a grassroots approach to develop plans to handle local severe weather, as well as inform citizens of threats.

There are now more than 860 StormReady communities in 47 states and 16 TsunamiReady communities along the West Coast of the U.S., Hawaii, and Alaska.

To be recognized as TsunamiReady or StormReady a community must:

• Establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center;
• Have more than one way to receive tsunami and severe weather warnings and forecasts to alert the public;
• Create a system that monitors local weather conditions;
• Promote the importance of public readiness through community seminars;
• Develop a formal hazardous weather plan, which includes training severe weather spotters and holding emergency exercises.

The image above shows the deployment in the Pacific Ocean of a Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoy, which will alert residents in case of a tsunami.

-- LiveScience Staff

Credit: NOAA