Toward Tsunami Shelters

The coastline of the Pacific Northwest and northernmost California—the land also known as Cascadia—is prone to gigantic earthquake/tsunami combinations like the one that struck Sumatra in 2004. An engineer for the state of Oregon, Yumei Wang, wants every seaside town to have strong platforms on stout stilts where people can run when earthquakes strike. Many of these communities, she says, are too flat and congested for people to reach high ground in the few minutes they'll have between the shock and the wave.

Wang is talking to the town of Cannon Beach about constructing America's first tsunami evacuation building or TEB. Because tsunamis are rare events, these structures should also have an everyday use. Wang's idea is for Cannon Beach to use its building for a city hall. She made a presentation on the idea at the GSA meeting in October; the GSA also has a white paper with more detail.

More background:
The Great Cascadia Earthquake of 2xxx
About Tsunamis
The 10 Most Deadly Tsunamis in Each Ocean
The 2004 Sumatra Earthquake
_{Conceptual TEB design by Ecola Architects — image courtesy GSA}