Friday, May 13, 2011

Tsunami Evacuation Drills at the Oregon coast beginning next week!

May 13, 2011
Portland, Oregon: As part of the ongoing Tsunami Outreach Oregon education and awareness program administered by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) and Oregon Emergency Management (OEM), several coastal communities will be holding tsunami evacuation drills in the next 2 weeks.

The coastal communities of Pacific City and Neskowin and surrounding communities will be holding a voluntary Tsunami Evacuation Drill Tuesday, May 17, beginning at 10 AM. For more information on this drill, please contact Fire Captain Jim Kusz at (541) 407-0801.

Gold Beach, Port Orford and surrounding communities will be holding voluntary Tsunami Evacuation Drills Thursday, May 19, beginning at 10 AM. For more information on these drills contact South Coast Tsunami Outreach Coordinator Dave Lacey at (541) 373-0487 or Don Kendall, Curry County Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Services Coordinator at (541) 247-3208.

On May 25 at 10 AM, the City Of Warrenton, nearby unincorporated areas, and Warrenton area schools will hold their voluntary Tsunami Evacuation Drill. For more information on this drill contact North Coast Tsunami Outreach Coordinator Patrick Wingard at (503) 717-3995.

The community wide drills in Pacific City, Gold Beach and Port Orford will also incorporate an aircraft broadcasting a message about the drill using an airborne public address system developed by Guardians From Above and the Power Sonix Corporation. This same type of airborne public address system has been used in search and rescue efforts by the Civil Air Patrol throughout the region and has been demonstrated in tsunami drills as an additional method of alerting coastal residents of a distant tsunami warning issued by the National Weather Service where sirens have limited coverage.

Read the complete news release in the attached PDF or go online at: http://www.OregonGeology.org