White House releases tsunami action plan

[Balta1701]

For anyone out there who believes I never give the Administration credit for doing things right...Here's one that it looks like they're doing very well.

 

Hoping to protect U.S. shores from being hammered by a tsunami, the White House directed federal agencies Friday to increase earthquake and volcano monitoring systems, deep ocean buoys and other high-tech means of alerting oceanside communities.

 

The tsunami plan was requested by President Bush and Congress after an earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004, caused a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It killed or left missing at least 216,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean countries, and "demonstrated international vulnerability," said John Marburger, Bush's top science adviser...

 

Specifically, the plan written by the president's National Science and Technology Council directs federal agencies to:

 

Encourage communities to develop tsunami response plans, and to build and plan in ways that can reduce the impact of a future tsunami.

 

Develop risk assessments of the potential tsunami hazards for all U.S. coastal regions.

 

Increase the number of tsunami buoys, tide gauge and seismic sensors feeding real-time data into computer models to improve tsunami forecasting and warning systems along Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico coastlines.

 

Give technical help to improve warning systems for tsunamis and other hazards in the Indian Ocean.

At least on the surface, these all seem to be very good reccomendations...in particular the buoys in the Atlantic. Aside from Chicago, some of the biggest cities in the U.S. are actually at huge risk from these things, and it's worth some regular funding just to make sure they're not destroyed.

 

We have a major subduction zone off the west coast, which could produce a tsunami that could strike the U.S. within 30 minutes and do damage the whole way up and down the coast.

 

The Pacific Ocean is surrounded by subduction zones, which can produce Tsunami that can strike either our coastline or Hawaii and do serious damage.

 

The Caribbean is enigmatic, with both subduction and major volcanic centers which can produce major waves, which would swamp the lowlands along the coastline.

 

The Atlantic is the U.S's major population center, and there are islands in the Atlantic which run a very high risk of undergoing major collapse and triggering tsunami at some point within the next few thousand years (and no one knows when).

 

Right now people are actually thinking about Tsunami, for obvious reasons. Now's the time to use that to try to build up a better system, on the off chance that someday it will be needed. If it were to be needed, we'd be glad we had it. Make sure you keep your eye casually on this, just in case some budget-cutting Congressperson decides its not worth the funds.

[southsider2k5]

This is one thing that I firmly believe we wouldn't have a chance to survive no matter how much warning we had. Think about the messes of evacuations with 24-48 hours notice in New Orleans and Houston. Now imagine that with a few hours notice on the East Coast with all of the nations huge population centers from Florida all of the way up to Canada all trying to evacuate at the sametime, all going the same direction. Millions of people would die, I have no doubt about it.