PORT ANGELES – The State of Washington appears to be getting more serious about the threat of tsunamis.
The State Legislature just came up with close to a million dollars to buy and install 16 new tsunami sirens around coastal cities like ours. The all-hazard alert broadcast (AHAB) sirens will alert us of an impending tsunami or other disaster within a 1.5-mile radius, and will be in addition to the sirens already in place.
There’s another million dollars for new seismic monitoring stations and global navigation satellite systems that integrate with the early warning system known as ShakeAlert.
Washington Emergency Management Division spokesman Travis Linares-Hengen says these are brand new technology for our area.
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Linares-Hengen says officials are now working to finish conducting site evaluations of siren requests received earlier in the year. They expect to have that work completed by the end of May.
They say priority is being given to jurisdictions along the outer coast and Strait of Juan De Fuca.