Clallam County emergency managers said they kept a close watch on the tsunami spreading across the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, but never activated the emergency operations center in the basement of the Clallam County Courthouse in Port Angeles.
But Jefferson County, with less Pacific coastline than Clallam has, did activate its center in Port Townsend.
There was a minuscule, almost unnoticeable tsunami along the Washington coast Saturday, hours after an advisory was sent by the federal government in the wake of a magnitude 8.8 quake in central Chile late Friday night Pacific Standard Time.
The government, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, calculated that any wave from the quake would reach Neah Bay at 3:07 p.m. Saturday, and issued that advisory early that morning.
At one point, NOAA had all of the Pacific Coast, Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound — including the San Juan Islands — under a tsunami advisory, the lowest alert level.
“We would have been ready, but we didn’t have to be,” said Jamye Wisecup, Clallam County emergency management program coordinator, on Monday.
Not crying ‘wolf’
Had there been a tsunami watch or a tsunami warning, county officials say they would have activated the emergency center and sounded sirens installed along the county’s coastline.
“What we wouldn’t want to do is go out and cry wolf,” said Ron Peregrin, Clallam County undersheriff and emergency manager.
Peregrin was on conference call with the National Weather Service, state officials and other emergency managers on Saturday. They all were monitoring offshore instruments as the tsunami made its way north, Peregrin told the three county commissioners on Monday.
“We quickly determined that the wave impact on the coast would be about one foot,” Peregrin said.
“We elected not to activate the [emergency operations center].”
Different view
Jefferson County looked at the situation differently.
“Staff spent all day Saturday monitoring conditions,” said Bob Hamlin, Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management program director, in a prepared statement.
“Jefferson County Emergency Management has always had an operational philosophy of ‘leaning forward’ during such seemingly minor events.”
Wisecup said Clallam County officials received updates from NOAA by phone and e-mail throughout the day.
“We monitored and monitored and monitored,” she said.
“We were just watching it.”
The Peninsula Daily News, monitoring The Associated Press as well as NOAA Web sites, continuously updated the advisory verbatim on its Web site from early morning until NOAA canceled it around 5 p.m.
