BEAT THE WAVE TSUNAMI EVACUATION MODELING ON THE OREGON COAST

When the next great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami occur, coastal residents and visitors will have 10-30 minutes to reach safety. Evacuation on foot will be the only means possible. To be prepared, people need answers to questions: what are the most efficient roads and trails to take to reach safety; how fast will people have to travel to beat the wave to safety; will the earthquake cause bridges to become impassable or activate a landslide that blocks an escape route, and if evacuation isn't feasible, what other preparations can be made? Beat the Wave is a tsunami pedestrian evacuation analysis designed to answer these questions and foster the development of community-specific mitigation efforts ranging from clear and visible signage placed in key locations to the construction of a tsunami vertical evacuation structure.

Model data and results were originally orientated towards county emergency managers, city officials, fire and police chiefs, local planning and public works departments. Although these data are publicly accessible through the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), the format of the reports and accompanying geospatial data are not ideal for public use. In 2018, DOGAMI collaborated with the InfoGraphics Lab from the Univ. of Oregon to develop a Beat the Wave evacuation brochure for public use. In 2019, we continued this collaboration with the ability to automatically generate evacuation routes from any location within the tsunami zone via the NANOOS web portal and smartphone app.

While considerable outreach has been done, much work remains to both maintain and improve public awareness of the hazard, especially the thousands of visitors to the Oregon coast. An essentially “forever” outreach and education program must be sustained to achieve the needed instinctive response and to assist local communities in developing mitigation actions and strategies. It is our intent that Beat The Wave contribute to this campaign in a meaningful way.