Many communities across the west coast braced for a tsunami advisory after an underwater volcano exploded near the island nation of Tonga over the weekend. With several recent earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean, one coastal town is fine-tuning its emergency preparedness.
North Bend said it activated it’s Emergency Operations Center once it received the tsunami advisory. “We did have three hours or so to do good evaluations on just what actions we needed to take,” said North Bend Fire Chief Jim Brown. “All the department heads, including the mayor, got together and determined no evacuations were needed,” he said.
Chief Brown said it was great practice ahead of a future tsunami disaster. “It was an opportunity to really evaluate where we were at and be able to take care of our people the best way we could,” he said.