Question: There have recently been several signs on various streets and districts notifying the public of tsunami area zones. When will we see a general map showing the exact tsunami zone areas so we can determine if a tsunami will affect our neighborhood, places of employment, education or shopping areas, and also the appropriate shelters for those affected?
Answer: Such maps are available, and were before the signs went up. Online versions allow you to search street addresses to assess risk, while printed versions, such as in the Disaster Preparedness Guide included in the phone book, show evacuation zones by geographic area.
To find out whether you or your loved ones live, work or otherwise spend much time in a tsunami evacuation zone on Oahu, enter the location’s address in the tsunami map viewer at honolulu.gov/dem, the homepage of Honolulu’s Department of Emergency Management. Along with a link to the map, the website has safety tips, such as:
>> Learn ahead of time where the tsunami evacuations zones are and where you’ll go if you need to flee.
>> For most tsunami warnings, evacuate out of the red zone. For an extreme tsunami warning, evacuate out of the red and yellow zones (more on this later).
>> Speed is of the essence. “Anywhere outside the evacuation zone is a safe place,” the website says. During a tsunami warning, heavy vehicle traffic may cause delays, so try to pinpoint a safe spot to which you can walk quickly.
>> “If you are near high-rise buildings when an evacuation order is issued, consider vertical evacuation. To vertically evacuate, proceed to the fourth floor or higher of a building that is 10 stories or taller.”
>> If you don’t live in an evacuation zone, stay home when a tsunami warning is issued, so the roads will be clear for evacuees who need to flee the coast.
>> A locally generated tsunami would give people less time to react than one caused by an earthquake far away. “If you are in a tsunami hazard or evacuation zone or a low-lying coastal area and you feel an earthquake, the ocean acts strange, or there is a loud roar coming from the ocean, a tsunami is possible and could arrive within minutes. Water movement may look like a fast-rising flood or a wall of water, or it may drain away suddenly, showing the ocean floor like a very low tide. If you observe these natural warning signs, evacuate the beach and move to higher ground immediately.”
As for the “tsunami hazard area” signs you’ve seen, they are among several hundred installed on Oahu over the past couple of years to raise awareness among residents and tourists. Signs installed in coastal parks are more detailed than those along roadways, and contain QR codes that link to evacuation maps and tell people to seek high ground, including vertical evacuation, in case of a tsunami warning, according to examples posted on DEM’s website.
The hazard areas marked by the signs encompass both of Oahu’s evacuation zones: the standard zone, marked in red on the map, which is closest to shore and would be evacuated for any tsunami warning, and the extreme zone just inland from the red zone, which is marked in yellow and would be evacuated only when the tsunami warning was generated by an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or larger around the Eastern Aleutian Islands, according to DEM. The red zone is based on Hawaii-specific data over the past 100 years, while the yellow zone reflects “a rare, more extreme tsunami event that would result in much more extensive flooding throughout Oahu.”
By signifying when a driver is entering or leaving a tsunami hazard area, the road signs also educate residents and visitors who reside outside these zones and aim to “reduce over-evacuation, which has the potential for unnecessary congestion and delays for those who truly need to evacuate” ahead of a tsunami, according to DEM.
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
