Officials, leaders tackle coastal disaster preparedness, resilience
A day-long series of panel discussions about the environmental hazards of living on the coast — and the potential solutions — brought almost 50 state and local officials, researchers from the University of Washington and other attendees together on Friday at Westport’s Ocosta High School.
The Washington Coastal Connection Series aimed to give leaders an understanding of the threats posed by offshore natural disasters and ways to improve preparation and recovery from them. The Coastal States Organization, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that shapes legislation on behalf of the nation’s 35 coastal states, and the Department of Ecology’s Washington Coastal Management program helped organize the event with Congressman Derek Kilmer.
“It’s an important issue in communities, so it’s important for the state,” said Brian Lynn, the Washington Coastal Management program manager. “It’s an issue that has many facets and many agencies and entities involved and just has a high level of need for collaboration and partnerships.”
Kilmer was originally scheduled to attend the event, but had to stay in Washington, D.C., to vote on a temporary spending bill to avert a government shutdown. By phone Friday afternoon, Kilmer spoke to the significance of the event, adding that the collaboration in Westport provided a “terrific contrast to the dysfunction in Washington D.C.”
“These conversations … really matter because it tries to figure out how, collectively, we can bring resources at the local level and at the federal level and coordination at the local level and the federal level to try to keep communities safe and to try to reduce the amount of damage associated with these challenges,” Kilmer said, speaking of the potential dangers that come with living on the coast.
Inside Ocosta Community Gym, a series of panels tackled the hazards themselves, funding available for preparation and recovery and ways for communities to become more resilient — or quick to recover — from events like tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides and floods.
The event featured experts like George Kaminsky with the state Department of Ecology’s Coastal Monitoring and Analysis Program, whose models showed the history of sand erosion along the beaches north and south of Grays Harbor. Tim Walsh, the chief hazards geologist for the Department of Natural Resources, used interactive geologic maps to explain the effects of landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis on the region in recent decades.
The morning’s second panel discussed the support available to fund communities’ efforts to improve resiliency, and educate residents on tsunami evacuation routes, earthquake protocol and more. Attendees also heard from George Crawford, the Emergency Management Division’s earthquake, volcano and tsunami program coordinator, who provided numbers estimating the risk associated with natural disasters on the Washington Coast.
According to Crawford’s presentation, nearly 45,000 residents live in Cascadia-related tsunami hazard zones on the coast, with about 100,000 tourists during the summer months. Most tsunamis — 90 to 95 percent, Crawford said — are survivable if residents know the warning signs, at-risk areas, evacuation routes and practice evacuations regularly.
Crawford stressed the importance of local education efforts, noting that tsunami-evacuation protocol in Westport, for example, would be different in Aberdeen.
The event coincided with Kilmer’s announcement of his Individual Assistance Improvement Act of 2015, a bill that aims to expand the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s assistance to rural areas. The bill would do away with the agency’s formula that, according to the bill, favors areas with denser populations when doling out funding to help residents after disasters.
Kilmer introduced the bipartisan bill with Washington state Reps. Dave Reichert and Dan Newhouse, who represent rural areas that saw devastating wildfire destruction this summer. Kilmer’s work on the bill, he said, was a direct result of the Harbor’s January flooding.
“Our bipartisan legislation would lift some of those barriers and make it easier for rural communities and smaller communities to be eligible for that,” Kilmer said, adding that the bill also provides more guidance for those communities navigating the process.
The event also featured a walk-through of the Ocosta School District’s vertical-evacuation facility, touted at the event as the first of its kind in North America. The building, when finished, will hold at least 1,000 residents at about 50 feet above sea level during a tsunami or other disaster, said district Superintendent Paula Akerlund. Pilings under the building, she added, would keep it stable even during soil liquefaction.
Akerlund said the process to build the nearly $16 million facility began just after she arrived at the district four years ago, and that the project was entirely funded with state and local dollars. A bond to help fund the facility passed with 70 percent approval in the April 23, 2013 Special Election.
Friday’s event drew officials from across the Harbor, including mayors Jack Durney from Hoquiam, Crystal Dingler from Ocean Shores and Westport’s Michael Bruce. Durney and Dingler said the collaboration with state and federal agencies would help
“We’re working hard constantly to educate ourselves more, and events like this give us that opportunity for education,” Dingler said. “And you’ve got Derek Kilmer behind this, and the Department of Ecology, and those folks make bigger things happen.”
Durney said the event reminded him of Hoquiam’s significant earthquake risk and the flooding that can come from those disasters.
- See more at: http://thedailyworld.com/news/local/officials-leaders-tackle-coastal-disaster-preparedness-resilience#sthash.hYmJYOhD.dpuf
Source: The Daily World