Photo courtesy of Pacific County Emergency Management
Imagine for a moment that you are going about your daily business inside your home when all of a sudden you hear a high-pitched melody coming from outside. You hear words muffled through your house walls but cannot make out what they are saying, and although you know you should hurry and find out what is going on, life finds a way to prevent you from getting outside before the voice is silenced. It is for this very reason that the Herald recently reached out to the people of the PacificCounty Emergency Management Agency to clarify for us all what we should do or learn from these experiences.
Located within the Sheriff's Office toward the back of the Pacific County Courthouse, is the office of PCEMA Deputy Director Scott McDougall. Of course the Herald's first question was what the sirens located throughout Pacific County are actually used for.
Pacific County uses the All Hazards Alert Broadcast(AHAB) siren for its outdoor warning system. The sirens are tested on the first Monday of each month at noon.
These scheduled tests will sound the Westminster Chimes for ten seconds, followed by a verbal message for 15 seconds stating that it is a test of the siren warning system. In an actual event, the sirens will play a constant wailing tone for 3 minutes and will be followed by a verbal message. Another drill happens once a year on the third Thursday in October. This is a nationwide drill called the Great ShakeOut. People are asked to drop, cover, and hold on in preparation for an earthquake. As part of this national drill all the sirens in the state are activated.
"One misconception that a lot of people in the community have," McDougall explained, "is that they should be able to hear the sirens from inside their homes. People become really concerned when they cannot hear the alarms. However, they are designed to be outdoor warning devices, not indoor warning devices."
The main idea behind these sirens and their tests is that they are a piece of a multi-layered warning system, of which the sirens are just one small part. This tiered warning system includes all sorts of things most of us probably don't think much about. Emergency alerts are designed to be broadcasted over your television or radio, and even through your telephone similar to an Amber Alert. A system known as Reverse 911 is used to keep people in the county safe by creating and updating a database of all the wired phone lines in the area. The system will only use this data in a real emergency such as an earthquake or tsunami. This does not apply to cellular phone coverage, however, as those numbers are not automatically entered. It is highly recomended to sign up for emergency alerts at www.hyper-reach.com/wapacificsignup.html.
Tsunamis can be categorized in two different ways. The first is generated by a distant event, such as the earthquake in Japan that happened in 2011. These are the types of Tsunamis that the AHAB warning system is designed for. However, we live on the Pacific Coast in what in referred to as the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This fault is a convergent plate boundary that stretches from Vancouver Island to Northern California. If a rupture in this fault were to occur there would not be much time for warning sirens to be activated, or the sirens may not be functional. In those cases the ground shaking is your warning.
"We don't want to cause anyone to panic, but in the case of an earthquake, if people feel the ground shake more than 30 seconds, we encourage people to drop, cover, and hold on," McDougal stated. "An earthquake can damage warning sirens, and the resulting tsunami can reach the coast within 20-30 minutes. After the ground stops shaking, you need to decide, and do what is most expedient for you as an individual within that timeframe. Assume that the possibility exists that a tsunami could have been triggered and get to high ground. A means of communication is part of personal preparation, so we have the ability to reach out to people and let them know the tsunami has passed."
Knowledge and preparation are vital components to keeping safe. Everyone living on the coast to review emergency plans with their families.
For more information please visit http://www.pacificcountysheriff.com/emergency-management.html