PORT ANGELES — A man holding a sign with an elephant saying “Go up” — as in get to higher ground — led a dozen would-be earthquake victims on a Tsunami Saunter through downtown Port Angeles on Wednesday as part of the four-day regionwide Cascadia Rising drill.
Organizers of the exercise, which ends Friday, were assessing how city, county, state and federal emergency responders would handle the inevitable tsunami, loss of power and broken landscape a 9.0-magnitude earthquake would cause in coastal communities throughout Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.
Cascadia exercise officials battling ho-hum attitudes about the catastrophe took a humorous approach to preparing the public.
“We are doing this in unusual ways because the public thinks, oh, this is the same — the same old, same old,” organizer Kathleen Reiter, training coordinator for Clallam County Amateur Radio Emergency Services, said at City Pier at the outset of tsunami walk.
Hence, the elephant, a behemoth that National Geographic reported sensed the earthquake in Indonesia before the 2004 temblor led to 228,000 fatalities.
The exercise is being conducted in anticipation of movement in the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
The 800-mile fault, which stretches from southern British Columbia to Northern California, spawns earthquakes an average of once every 200 to 500 years.
Expect four to eight minutes of shaking if a 9.0-magnitude quake ripples from its core, Penny Linterman Joint Information Center manager, said at an 11 a.m. briefing in Clallam County Courthouse Wednesday morning.
Its last major earthquake rent the earth asunder more than 300 years ago in 1700.
Hazardous materials decontamination drills took place along the Port Angeles waterfront while Tsunami Saunter participants queued up at noon at the Feiro Marine Life Center at noon.
They readied themselves to rehearse what to do in the hours following an earthquake when a tsunami would hit, inundating the downtown waterfront and reaching an estimated 19 feet to 39 feet at Ediz Hook, Linterman said.
Port Angeles resident Josh Sutcliffe’s job in the walk was to bring up the rear in a blue poncho dotted with fishing-buoy-shaped bulbous bumps.
“I think this is a great idea to bring awareness of procedures in a tsunami — and it’s a chance to dress up as a wave,” Sutcliffe said.
As the contingent set out for the faux earthquake gathering point at Vern Burton Community Center 11 blocks away, Reiter warned the column to envision a city laid to waste like collapsed Lincoln Logs.
Participants walked two blocks to Olympic Stationers on Front Street, where owner Karen Reed handed them “How To Escape A Tsunami” instruction cards.
As part of the exercise, tsunami saunters were allowed to walk past the office supplies and gifts to the back of the store to get to the alley — though they had to make a U-turn to go out the front, their exit out the back blocked by construction.
The contingent broke up into two groups, with one making its way up Lincoln street while Dan Boon of Port Angeles held the elephant sign.
He led about six participants to the downtown fountain and the Laurel Street stairs.
One participant, just back from vacation, said she saw information about the Tsunami Saunter on Facebook and decided to give it a go.
“I’m interested in knowing what we have to do in case one comes,” she said.
She joined the other saunters who trudged up the 106 steps of the Laurel Street stairs to the bluff above downtown — which may or may not remain after an earthquake.
At the top of the stairs, they were handed more earthquake information before walking the remaining distance to the Vern Burton Center on Fourth Street.
There, participants were handed more information, water and two rounds of granola bars.
“You might not be able to get out,” Iris Sutcliffe, Josh’s wife, told participants before they departed.
Exercise Public Information Officer Jim Borte had warned on Tuesday, the first day of the exercise, that earthquake cracks in U.S. Highway 101 could be 5 inches to 12 inches deep.
Iris Sutcliffe emphasized what Tsunami Saunter participants should do if that happens.
“You’ve got to have a plan,” she said.
To that end, agencies that are participating in Cascadia Rising are getting acquainted as the exercise progresses, Washington National Guard Sgt. 1st Dann Oppfelt of Sequim said.
Oppfelt serves as liaison to Clallam County Emergency Operations Coordinator Ron Cameron, Clallam County’s undersheriff and emergency management coordinator who was bivouacked in the courthouse basement in a bustling emergency-response headquarters.
“The idea is that this is kind of a shakedown, so that everyone is getting to know each other,” Oppfelt said.
He took a tiny, rugged Incident Command Systems Field Guide out of his pocket.
Cascadia Rising 2016, he said, is “where theory meets reality.”
Today, the exercises will include a reverse Community Points of Distribution food bank drive centered on Strait Shots Espresso, 17295 state Highway 112 in Clallam Bay.
On Friday, a mock airlift rescue will include a safety briefing that the public is invited to at 9:30 a.m. at the Clallam County Fire District No. 3 maintenance yard, 255 Carlsborg Road.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
