On Wednesday March 29 2023, at approximately 10:15 a.m. the Alaska State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) along with the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Alaska Area Broadcasters will conduct a live-code test of the tsunami warning system.
The test will be carried live on radio and TV (the Emergency Alert System – EAS) and will use the actual tsunami warning code, but carry an audio and/or visual test message. This is done to test this life-safety warning system end-to-end to make sure the system works for a tsunami warning.
The test area will be for portions of coastal communities in Southeast Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak, the Aleutians and Pribilofs, but may be heard in other areas of the state due to the Emergency Alert System configuration.
NWS also intends to activate NOAA Weather Radio to alert for this test. The Kenai Peninsula Borough siren system automatically activates through the NOAA Weather Radio for a tsunami warning. The NOAA Radio TEST alert may trigger sirens to activate automatically. In the event that this TEST triggers the sirens, the KPB Office of Emergency Management will manually override the test, followed by an all-clear notification.
According to Brenda Ahlberg, Emergency Manager with the Kenai Peninsula Borough (KPB), this test is important to KPB coastal communities on Resurrection and Kachemak Bays. For KPB communities there are 14 siren locations, this includes sirens located in Port Graham, Nanwalek, Homer, Seldovia (Kachemak Bay) as well as Lowell Point and Seward (Resurrection Bay). The Office of Emergency Management will be evaluating the test in the event that our siren system is activated for the test at any or all of these siren locations.
On the test day on Wednesday SEOC also intends to test our SEOC tsunami warning procedures. The SEOC intends to send an automated tsunami warning test message over the Alaska Alert and Warning System phone (AKWAS) to dispatch centers and through SEOC’s automated phone call, email, and text system to emergency managers and tsunami risk community contacts in tsunami risk areas of the state. SEOC will follow those calls with a manual phone call to all of our tsunami risk contacts to verify phone numbers and contact.
