Local commitment urged at tsunami refuge forum

At a two-hour forum in Ocean Shores last week, featuring seven of the state’s leading experts in how to plan for — and survive — a tsunami, citizens focused on ways to fund and build support for vertical evacuation structures or safe havens.

As the second part of the so-called Tsunami Road Show at the Ocean Shores Convention Center, about 85 local residents, business owners and several elected officials heard from a panel of seven presenters as part of the Washington Emergency Management program. Most of the questions centered on what it would take to build structures, with two specific grant funds identified that already have led to applications for three projects by other communities, including the Shoalwater Bay tribe and Long Beach.

“People want something to happen,” said Charles Wallace, deputy director of Grays Harbor County Emergency Management. “The only way it’s going to happen is if you work together. You have to work together. There is a process that we can go through that will eliminate a lot of questions and a lot of issues. But the only way it can occur is if you come to your elected officials and say, ‘Please do this. We want you to go through the process.’”

One of those local elected officials, Ocean Shores City Councilman Jon Martin, started the forum by saying his mind already had been changed about the chances of surviving a tsunami locally after the previous Tsunami Road Show presentation in April, which drew a standing-room crowd of 300.

“I was probably a fatalist,” said Martin, who manages the local McDonald’s and also is an owner of Martin Bruni Liquor in Ocean Shores. “My philosophy on a tsunami was that I live in Ocean Shores, so when it comes, I’m going to grab my favorite alcoholic beverage and wait for it to show up.”

What changed his mind, Martin said, was a presentation during the first Tsunami Road Show about how one school practiced for such an event in Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Many of the students survived, while at a nearby school that did not plan for a tsunami, nearly all the children perished, he said.

“If we’re waiting for the federal government to do something, they’re not. If something is going to be done, it has to be done by local government and local citizens,” Martin said, adding this question to kick off the forum: “Is Ocean Shores ready?”

Wallace noted that Ocean Shores was the first city in the state to be declared tsunami-ready, but it is not the first to build a tsunami evacuation structure, like the one built in 2016 with local funding at the Ocosta Elementary School in Westport. He urged citizens not to have a “I, me, mine,” issue with supporting the construction of tsunami safe structures.

“This is an everybody issue. No matter what they propose for the future, it may not specifically benefit you where you live in Ocean Shores … but it’s a start. If we can go and get one built, then we can get a second one and a third and a fourth. Then we can start passing ordinances that say all of our critical infrastructure, our hotels and motels have to be built to a different standard so everybody has a place to go” in the event of a tsunami.

“Nobody is going to help you unless you are willing to help yourselves,” Wallace said.

Help, however, is ready to get that effort started, the panel members maintained during the event.

“We’re here because we want you to survive. We know you can. We know you can help your community,” said moderator Maxmillan Dixon, Earthquake Program Manager with Washington Emergency Management.

Other Tsunami experts at the forum June 12 included Jeana Wiser of Project Safe Haven planner, Daniel Eungard of the Washington Geological Survey, tsunami modeler Randall LeVegue of the University of Washington, oceanographer Chris Moore of NOAA, Cale Ash, principal engineer for Degenkolb Engineers, and Tim Cook, state hazard mitigation officer with Washington Emergency Management.

Safe Haven planning

Wiser noted she was in Ocean Shores for a Safe Haven event on the night of the tsunami in Japan in 2011 — when the West Coast was under a tsunami alert.

The idea of building a vertical evacuation structure first was raised back then, but little has been done locally until recently. Taken into account were how long it would take residents or visitors to walk to a safe area, what issues would have to be surmounted, such as bridge and road damage from an earthquake and how structures could be placed throughout the Ocean Shores peninsula.

A Project Safe Haven map shown during the event had 19 potential locations, including the Quinault Beach Resort & Casino to the north. An effort was made to show how structures would fit into various parts of the city, such as a berm with multiple uses in one area, or a tower in other locations.

“Everybody would have, theoretically, a place within walking distance of about 15-to-20 minutes to be able to evacuate to a nearby site,” Wiser said.

To evacuate the Ocean Shores peninsula otherwise would take more than two hours-plus, she estimated.

“So we really need to look at alternative strategies, and that’s what led to this idea of engaging the community around vertical evacuation instead of horizontal evacuation,” Wiser said.

Grant funds available

As the state’s hazard mitigation officer, Cook said he specifically works with communities looking for grant funding “for projects like this.”

Currently, there are two programs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency — one asking for a 12.5 percent local contribution and the other a 25 percent local share.

“It takes local commitment of funds at the cost-share levels to get these awards,” Cook said.

The Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe south of Grayland currently has a grant pending for design of a vertical evacuation tower that has already been proposed, Cook noted. It has been selected as a finalist and a determination is expected within the next several month.

Long Beach received funding in 2015 to do design work on a vertical evacuation structure, as did Pacific County Fire District in 2017 for preliminary design.

Cook said both Ocean Shores and Grays Harbor County are eligible already for one of the programs because they recently completed a Hazard Mitigation Plan.

The Ocosta school project began in 2013 when none of the federal grant programs were available, and FEMA was asked for funding for such a plan for the first time, Cook said: “So they broke new ground, even though they didn’t get the money back in 2015.”

Because of the Ocosta application, which FEMA reviewed nationally, it was “determined for the first time that this activity was eligible.”

Design standards

As an engineer designing such structures, Ash said a design standard has now been adopted for vertical evacuation. It should be in place in 2020 and apply to future building codes. Fire and police stations will have to be built to resist the forces of a tsunami, as will commercial buildings higher than 65 feet.

Design of a tsunami evacuation structure first needs to consider the impact an earthquake would have on its specific location and on its topography. It will likely require an engineering peer review team signing off “to make sure we are getting this right,” Ash said.

The minimum safe elevation to survive a tsunami is another consideration, with inundation elevations modeled already and displayed during both forums in Ocean Shores. “From a design standpoint, we take a 30 percent factor for safety, so we multiply the elevation above sea level by an extra 30 percent. That’s the depth that we actually design our safe refuges for. But then when it comes to where we are actually going to put people, we take an extra 10 feet, or one story, on top of that,” Ash said.

In addition to how high it needs to be, the next issue is where a vertical evacuation structure is built. Other considerations are if it is to be a free-standing tower or a structure integrated into something such as a parking garage or commercial development.

“There is the structural design, but then there is how are you going to use this, how are you going to access it, how does it fit into the community? Those are all decisions by the residents of Ocean Shores. You should be thinking about how do these fit into your community.”