For over two years now the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management has been planning and preparing a substantial upgrade to the peninsula’s antiquated emergency tsunami alert system. Residents of the Kenai will be happy to learn of these upgrades, which couldn’t come at a better time, in the wake of a series of confusing emergency alert notifications pushed out to cell phones all across South Central Alaska on July 14th. Those alerts were prompted by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in the western portion of the Gulf of Alaska.
In an interview with KSRM, Brenda Ahlberg, manager of the KPB Office of Emergency Management, shared details on both the new system, and the process required to get it in place — aspects of development which can be summed up in two words: Extensive, and Expensive.
“It’s been about a two and a half year process, where we developed the scope of work to address this project in phases because we knew it was going to be not only an extensive project, but also very expensive. So that allowed the borough to pursue grants to supplement the project cost over time.”
Because the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) knew how extensive the upgrades would be, they understood right away the amount of time and energy that would need to go into this project.
The previous tsunami alert system was implemented in 2006, and as Ahlberg describes it, was like using “rabbit ears,” a near antediluvian infrastructure compared to the new system, which, continuing the analogy, she equates to streaming video on Netflix. According to Ahlberg, The old system was functional, and could be deployed on short notice, but suffered from brevity in its active monitoring operation, in large part due to its lack of sight-to-sight capabilities. In short, this used to mean inefficient delays for things like “All-Clear” notifications, as the visual data of tsunamis developing (or not) couldn’t be observed using system equipment. Sight-to-sight, however is only one of the many modernizations to the overall structure and network of the new alert system.
In addition to the visual capabilities, the new system will feature another helpful component: text to speech, allowing written communication to be converted into auto-generated speech, which would then be broadcast through the PA speakers at each of the network’s siren sites. As for the audibility of the speech, well, that’s a big upgrade too. As Ahlberg describes it, the old speakers could broadcast pre-recorded messages, but they were, at best, in the “Wah wah wah” diction of Charlie Brown’s faceless school teacher.
The improvements go beyond physical infrastructure, though. One significant function of the new system is its redundancy, i.e., the numerous ways it can retrieve data, as well as several options available to see that data relayed to the public. One way Ahlberg’s office was able to tackle such a task was to break the project into phases, which in turn presented a convenient and efficient means to implement said redundancies.
“With each one of these phases including what we could do with the initial system, then moving into updating that system, and then eventually replacing it, that allowed us to determine the best approach to create a [new] system that could also expand as well as have layers of redundancy. Those layers of redundancy are important to ensure reliable functionality.” Ahlberg said. “So for example, when the system is initially activated by NOAA, getting that signal to those towers could [now] be one of several ways, whether it’s through an IPS address, through satellite, through radio or even manual capabilities. We want to make sure that we have levels of redundancy that we can [use to] activate the system when necessary.”
It’s this level of redundancy which will allow for greater clarification in the process of warning alerts being delivered to the public. With the new system, the Kenai Peninsula Borough will be able to confirm the status of a tsunami with the National Weather Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in a fraction of the time. This means quicker, clearer, and more cohesive warning messages being delivered to the public.
To be clear, Ahlberg stressed how the alerts from the NWS and NOAA (the loud chiming ones sent to all cell phones) are based on direct data received from state of the art scientific monitoring equipment, and as such residents should always heed the warnings they bring. Along those lines, she also stressed how the KPB will never send a message which conflicts with one pushed out by the NWS and NOAA.
A portion of the confusion which ensued on July 14th, however, was in the polygraphic maps posted by the National Weather Service, which indicated geographic areas in the affect radius of a potential tsunami by highlighting them in gray. What was unclear as the KPB alerts activated, briefly calling for evacuations around the Kachemak Bay, was how those alerts did not pertain to all of the gray portions of the NWS warning map, but only the coastal regions directly referenced in the KPB alert. The new system, with its numerous redundancies, will help bring clarity and consistency to these alerts.
As Ahlberg puts it;
“Part of our protocol now is to confirm, and to remove, any type of confusion before we do an all clear. Because with conflicting messages, that’s the one thing we don’t want to do is assume, and create an all clear, when that wasn’t the correct information at the beginning. So, it was very important we wouldn’t change a thing. We would make sure that we worked with the state and with their support, as well as with NOAA directly, or with the National Weather Service directly to confirm that neither Kachemak Bay, nor the upper Cook Inlet was in the danger zone, even though the map indicated that they were.”
The other half of this project was the financial side. The OEM was able to obtain nearly $830,000 in government grants. $681,863 were provided through the Department of Homeland Security Grant Program, and an additional $147,464 from NOAA. These funds, acquired over the project’s two and a half year process, went directly to the implementation of new system infrastructure.
There are currently 14 sirens in place to alert the coastal communities around the Kenai Peninsula of a potential tsunami. Those sirens cover communities around Kachemak Bay (Homer, Anchor Point, Port Graham, Nanwalek, and Seldovia), as well as those around Resurrection Bay. There will now be 16 sites – NOAA directly funding one new alert tower in Homer, and the Department of Homeland Security Grant funding a new tower in Anchor Point.
Ahlberg also wanted to state her appreciation of the collaborative efforts from all municipalities within the Kenai Peninsula Borough. “The municipalities will be offering training for the new system, and participating in our standard operating procedures. It’s been a solid collaboration that I’d like recognized,” she shared in a text message.
After nearly three years of work, a new tsunami warning system is nearly in place on the Kenai Peninsula and surrounding areas.
Tests of the new system will begin as early as this Monday, July 24th, and run through August 20th.
To learn when and where these tests will take place, register your phone with KPB alerts at my.kpb.us/alerts, or follow alerts posted on social media at facebook.com/KPBAlerts.