The week of March 24th is Tsunami Awareness Week in Alaska. In response, the Alaska Broadcasters, the National Weather Service, and the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management will be conducting a test of the Tsunami Warning System on Wednesday, March 27th, at 10:20 am.
This test will be conducted for portions of coastal communities in the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak, the Aleutians, Pribilofs, and Southeast Alaska. Audio on TV and radio will indicate it’s a “test,” but what viewers see on their television screens may not.
NWS also intends to activate NOAA Weather Radio to alert for this test. The Kenai Peninsula Borough will not activate sirens or send additional test messages as part of the upcoming tsunami warning test. 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.
If you are traveling to a coastal region on Wednesday, March 27th, at approximately 10:20 AM, you may hear and or see a tsunami warning. It’s just a test of the tsunami warning system.
Back in 1964, the city of Anchorage experienced a deadly earthquake and tsunami. This incident occurred 60 years ago and devastated many southern Alaska coastal communities.
To ensure the safety of Alaska residents, this Wednesday, March 27th, at 10:20 AM, radio and TV stations serving portions of the southern Alaska coast will be part of a test of the Alaska Tsunami Warning System. You may hear or see the test if you are in a tsunami-risk area.
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 16 siren locations, this includes sirens located in Port Graham, Nanwalek, Homer, Seldovia (Kachemak Bay) Lowell Point, Seward (Resurrection Bay), and Anchor Point.
“I think the only thing I would add from a preparedness perspective is that understanding that at times you may not be around a siren during in earthquake event, and in the event that you cannot stand within 10 seconds that you should look to heading towards higher ground and that is either one mile in-land or 50 feet up,” advises Ahlberg.
The Alaska Broadcasters Association wants to remind the community to ‘”Chill, it’s just a drill, and be tsunami ready.”
If you would like to report your test reception, be sure to visit https://ready.alaska.gov/.