SAN FRANCISCO—The California Geological Survey released a new interactive tsunami hazard area map for San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Contra Costa counties on July 8. CGS Tsunami Unit Manager, Rick Wilson, said new information was gathered over the last 12 years including insights from the 2011 Japan Tohoku-Oki tsunami.
The interactive tsunami hazard maps are used for evacuation planning in the event of a tsunami, according to a CGS news release. Users can type in an address and determine whether a property or area will be within a tsunami hazard area. Wilson indicated a very big first step is determining if a location is in a tsunami hazard area.
“It’s just a really good time to kind of take advantage of these new products, you can type in your address, you can see where you’re located,” said Wilson. “We’re seeing that there’s an increase in the hazard and we have better capabilities now.”
The most significant increase in mapped tsunami areas are near North Beach, downtown, and Market Street in the San Francisco County, according to a CGS release. Areas with low land elevation can be impacted by a small increase in waterfront flooding.
“Really what we’re looking at and what’s influencing these maps the most is a large event from kind of our worst-case source for the central coast which is from the Alaska Aleutians area,” said Wilson. “The good news is we have five hours travel time. We’ll get official notification that something’s coming and then people can implement their plans.”
The CGS website offers a California Tsunami Preparedness Guide at tsunami.ca.gov that demonstrates how to use the new interactive hazard maps. Information regarding evacuation and tsunami preparedness can also be found and used to evacuate from a tsunami hazard area.
“I’d really like to see ya know that the website is put on there so people can access it and just let them know that it’s a good time to prepare for the future,” Wilson added.
