Drill puts tsunami response to the test

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

This is a drill:

A make-believe earthquake south of the Big Island registering 7.6 touched off a pseudo-tsunami that sent imaginary waves crashing across the southern shores of all islands in a test exercise yesterday.

The April Fool's Day date was not coincidental, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center chief Charles S. "Chip" McCreery said. It was the 57th anniversary of the destructive April 1, 1946, tsunami in which 159 people in Hawai'i died.

Had the tsunami been real yesterday, McCreery said, some people on Big Island shores almost certainly would have been killed by a wave that would have hit within minutes.

Hawai'i is vulnerable to tsunamis generated by local earthquakes, and those generated by earthquakes as far away as Alaska, Japan or Peru.

While the distant quakes usually give Hawai'i warning time if a wave is generated, those originating from local earthquakes could bring high water from Kona to Kaua'i within less than an hour, McCreery said.

The 1946 tsunami was generated by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, but there was no tsunami warning system in Hawai'i at the time, and people near the coast didn't realize how dangerous tsunamis were, that the first wave seen is not always the largest, and that the disappearance of water in a harbor or bay is sometimes the first indication of a tsunami, McCreery said.

In recorded history, large locally generated tsunamis have occurred in Hawai'i only twice, in 1868 and 1975, McCreery said. But another locally generated tsunami could occur tomorrow, he said.

Yesterday's test, timed to coincide with the normal testing of civil defense sirens on the first day of the month, featured new "products" for warning Hawai'i residents, including brief general descriptions of the earthquake and tsunami and information on how the public should respond.

Ed Teixeira, vice director of state civil defense, pronounced the exercise a success.

McCreery said Hawai'i residents need to remind themselves of steps to take if a tsunami threatens.

Anyone near a shoreline who feels an earthquake should immediately move quickly to high ground, McCreery said, because a wave from a nearby quake could hit land in less than five minutes.

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.