With Washington’s 3000 miles of coastline, disseminating accurate and timely tsunami bulletins is an essential step to the tsunami alerting process. Over the past couple of years, I have been working with National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program state and territory emergency management partners to document their tsunami alerting and response procedures utilizing templates developed from Washington’s own Tsunami Alerting and Response Timeline. These documents created a solid tsunami alerting and communication foundation for each state and territory. With the newly created alerting foundation, experts from within each state and territory provided insights into their tsunami alerting and communication gaps and challenges. At the same time, both the National and Pacific Tsunami Warning Centers are undergoing updates to align and improve their ability to accurately evaluate potential tsunami threats and issue bulletins out to their customers. Together, these projects will significantly improve tsunami alerting within Washington State and across the country. The gaps and challenges from my work with the NTHMP partners in combination with the ongoing Tsunami Warning Center updates show hope for a greatly improved tsunami alerting process in the future.

Course Level: Intermediate

About the Presenter

Ethan Weller currently serves as a Tsunami Program Coordinator with Washington Emergency Management Division. He facilitates the development of Tsunami Maritime Response and Mitigation Strategies and supported other states and territories to document their tsunami alerting and response procedures as part of NOAA’s Hazard Simplification project. Ethan is passionate about building relationships, sharing knowledge, and incorporating inclusive approaches to ensure that Washington is able to effectively and efficiently prepare for and mitigate the impacts of tsunamis. He received his Bachelor of Science in Biology at Western Washington University and went on to obtain his Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Hazards, Disaster, and Emergency Management from the University of Colorado – Denver.