Sunday, December 8, 2024

Tsunami Alert -- December 8, 2024


So, Wednesday I was sitting on one side of the lab getting ready for second grade and the singing teacher was working with a class on the other side. The loudspeaker came on and said we were having a tsunami alert. The teacher is new, so I told the kids to go to the upper yard and where to line up. All the kids kept quiet.

Thursday after morning recess, I was teaching coding to the third grade. My wife, the third-grade teacher, said she had just gotten an alert about a 7.something earthquake off the coast of Eureka. Soon after, she received a tsunami alert. The principal checked with the public school district and found that they were evacuating their schools, so we had to do the same. I had to explain to worried students that an earthquake near Eureka was unlikely to cause a major tsunami in Pacifica, and that we were high on a hill, so we were outside of the tsunami hazard zone. 

It took parents a few hours to pick up their kids. The alert was cancelled when sensors showed no change in sea level in the area of the earthquake.

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