PORT ANGELES — Think of traffic backing up for miles on U.S. Highway 101, like it did from Port Angeles toward Sequim on Memorial Day Weekend after two lanes were closed for investigation after an officer-involved shooting May 28.
That’s a bare fraction of the mess motorists would encounter if they try fleeing a 9.0-magnitude earthquake — contrary to what they should do, which is stay put, said Jim Borte, Clallam County public information officer, Tuesday during a kickoff of the Cascadia Rising 2016 exercise.
Local and state agencies are responding to the possibility of a massive earthquake this week as part of the exercise taking place through Friday in and around coastal communities throughout Washington, Oregon and British Columbia to help emergency responders prepare for catastrophe.
In Clallam and Jefferson counties, the drill included the arrival and set-up of a Joint Incident Site Communications Capability units at Carlsborg Road near Sequim, William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles and in Port Hadlock.
Penny Linterman, Joint Information Center manager, and Borte conducted a briefing at 11 a.m. in the Clallam County Courthouse.
That was three hours after the scenario had envisioned the earthquake hitting.
At that point, emergency operations centers would be open in Sequim, Jefferson County, Clallam Bay and Joyce, according to plans if such a cataclysm were to occur.
The exercise is simulating a subduction-zone temblor off the Washington and Oregon coast, where the Juan de Fuca plate collides and wedges under the North American plate.
Geologists believe major earthquakes occur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone about once every 500 years, the last of which happened in January 1700.
“Part of the challenge is, there’s one road in, one road out,” Borte said of Highway 101 while describing the exercise in a historic courtroom at the courthouse, a building Borte said could be lapped by water if an earthquake-inspired tsunami reaches Port Angeles.
It could “absolutely” be weeks before food and supplies arrive, he said.
Linterman noted that 27 National Guard personnel in Clallam County would be deployed during the temblor. Many were deployed Tuesday in Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks in Clallam County and in Jefferson County.
Residents should remember all the fuel they will have — likely for weeks — will be in their vehicles and whatever else they have on hand, said Linterman, noting fuel resources would have to be immediately shut down.
“We’re up the creek without a paddle,” she said.
“People need to prepare for being in their home if they get there, and not go anywhere,” she said.
“What you have at your house is what you’ve got and what you’ve got with your neighbors, and that’s it.
“You see the light bulbs in people’s faces when you tell people they face no power for six months to a year.”
The point of the exercise is “to test our system,” Linterman said.
The tsunami warning — the Winchester chime that sounds monthly from Clallam Bay to Port Townsend — didn’t sound for the drill, but in an earthquake would blare every 15 minutes around the clock.
And in a real-world tsunami, Linterman added, “Mother Nature would be telling us to get to higher ground.”
Ediz Hook — where 29 feet of water, plus or minus 30 percent, would have inundated the spit — would be closed to traffic, as would downtown Port Angeles.
Cherry and Lincoln streets would be closed.
“Plans are underway for an evacuation of the downtown Port Angeles area,” Borte said.
About 30 Joint Information Center personnel were on duty in Sequim and about 50 at the courthouse.
Linterman said the courthouse itself has only 3,500 square feet that can be powered by a generator during a catastrophe.
Sequim-area Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias observed the bustling earthquake-response activity at the Joint Information Center in the courthouse basement.
“I imagine preparations will be built into the 2017 budget,” he said.
“I can’t be sure what that might be until we get reporting back post-exercise to get a sense of what those priorities are.”
The Joint Information Center roster included Mark Stewart of the state Emergency Operations Center External Affairs Group, Barbara Hanna and Bobbie Usselman of the Sequim Emergency Operations Center and Jefferson County Public Information Officer Keppie Keplinger.
The Dungeness Map Your Neighborhood group on Tuesday also practiced procedures to inspect and secure their neighborhood.
Cascadia Rising activities today will include hazardous materials decontamination exercises at the Port of Port Angeles dock behind Platypus Marine Inc., on Marine Drive from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., as well as at the port parking lot across from the port headquarters on First Street.
A group of volunteers will lead 35 people on a Tsunami Saunter downtown Port Angeles evacuation drill at noon that will start at the Feiro Marine Life Center at City Pier and end at the Vern Burton Community Center on Fourth Street.
From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday in Clallam Bay, Clallam County Fire District No. 5 plans a “reverse CPOD” (Community Point of Distribution) at 17295 state Highway 112.
Instead of receiving food and water, as would happen after a quake, community members will go to the distribution site and donate food to the New Hope Food Bank.
On Friday, a mock air rescue is planned from the Carlsborg command center. No time has been scheduled.
In East Jefferson County, five neighborhoods— Cape George, the bluffs in upper Uptown in Port Townsend, Kala Point, Port Hadlock Heights and all of Marrowstone Island — are practicing reporting damages, injuries and needs to the emergency command center.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
