Tsunami warning buoys experiencing problems

[RobertSeattle]

Half the buoys "guarding" the West Coard aren't working!

(I'm sure the first thing Bush thought of after hearing of the Tsunami was if all our warning buoys were working...not)

SEATTLE – Tsunami warning buoys are a key technology for the West Coast and Hawaii for tsunami threats. But KING 5 has learned that half of the nation's tsunami warning buoys are not working.

The six tsunami buoys bobbing in the deep ocean swells of the Pacific are spread out from Alaska to Central America. They are sentinels designed to warn the United States that a killer wave is heading our way.

But equipment failure and bad weather have severely hampered efforts to keep those buoys operational.

The "tsunometers" were developed in Western Washington.
Two are supposed to be stationed off the Northwest coast, but one has been out of commission for over a year and has been pulled out for repairs

More..

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_011005WABbrokenbuoysKC.98d845a0.html?hp

[burrowowl]

1. Like I have said before

if there is a BIG earthquake, warn the region of tsunami danger.
And if you see funny waves, hie thee to higher land and if the ocean starts withdrawing, hie thee yonder with your knees touching your chin.
The story of the 10 year-old UK girl is a lesson to pay attention to your surroundings!

[Cha]

2. When I lived on Kauai in the '90's

we had a couple of tsunami warnings from Earthquakes in the ocean around Japan..they never happened but we sure knew what to do if they would have.

We had just experienced a 5 hurricane in '92!

[Ediacara]

3. These bouys are a good thing

But a warning system consisting of the USGS webpage and a local tide chart would be adequate. Fortunately for North America.... almost no one lives ON the coast north of the mouth of the Columbia. Unfortunately, for humanity, no warning system, even one consisting of the USGS webpage was in place for many tens of thousands :-(

[burrowowl]

4. If maintained eom

[Lisa]

5. "in case of a tsunami warning, don't go down to the beach to watch!"

My first day living on the West Coast, I saw this plastered on the side of a bus. That's when I knew I wasn't in Kansas (or rather, southern Ontario) anymore ...

p.s. and just to add to DinoBoy's point -- even if there's a warning system, they still have to have some kind of measures in place for alerting people and evacuating them, to save lives. A lot of the smaller towns along the coasts, even in North America, don't have this. In our city, in theory we could broadcast it on TV and radio, but that wouldn't help people who weren't tuned in -- and if it happened in the middle of the night, too bad. (Even Port Alberni with its siren network is further ahead.) And even then, it would be chaos with clogged intersections etc. -- plus nobody would know where to flee to.

[uppityperson]

6. Seattle Times has a map too, link here

Todays from page has a story and a java map. Here's the link to the story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002149756_tsunami13m.html
On an aside, when living in AK 20 yrs ago, people went down to the ocean to watch a 2 inch tsunami, said they couldn't see anything different. Maybe they'll think twice now?