San Mateo County officials hold tsunami townhall to improve future response
Town Hall held in San Mateo County to review tsunami warning wins and losses
The county plans to improve outreach through text messaging, signage and evacuation maps.
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. - Dozens of people attended a town hall Thursday night to address the response to the tsunami warning on Dec. 5 by San Mateo County and first responders. The warning was issued after a 7.0 earthquake in Northern California.
San Mateo County Sup. Ray Mueller from District 3 led the discussion about the tsunami warning, along with other stakeholders including emergency management and first responders. Residents asked questions and voiced their frustrations.
"We had the sheriff come through our neighborhood which is outside the tsunami zone and tell people to evacuate and that created a great deal of confusion because we all thought we were OK," one person said.
Emergency management officials first talked about why there was a tsunami warning, explaining that there had been a 7.0 earthquake. Then they explained why the sirens didn’t go off.
"Pushing that warning button, that tsunami siren button, would have caused panic and mass evacuation and that is not a benign process."
Why the tsunami didn't happen
KTVU Meteorologist Mark Tamayo explains why the tsunami didn't happen after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the Northern California coast. A warning was triggered but was then canceled.
The director of San Mateo County Emergency Management said it was a collective decision made by multiple counties and agencies to not sound the sirens because impact would not be significant enough in the area. People also talked about not knowing which low-lying areas should be evacuated.
"Many people didn’t know where the low-lying areas were that they were supposed to leave. What they saw around them was individuals leaving, which led to panic because they didn’t have the information that where they were was safe. Part of that was caused because the state website crashed," said Mueller.
Mueller also said the county plans to improve outreach through text messaging, signage and evacuation maps and updating the county’s website with tsunami preparedness by February.
Emergency management officials said they’re learning from community feedback and have already begun implementing ways to improve.
"I think we’ve done three or four assemblies already. So, we are working with the school districts to make sure they shore up their plans and then there’s an education campaign from the school to the parents as well," said Shruti Dhapodkar, director of San Mateo County Emergency Management.
One of the main takeaways at the meeting is that messaging needs to be better and clearer, so people know what to do. Tsunami drills may also become as important as earthquake drills to be prepared.