Humboldt Residents Report Missing Tsunami Test Alerts During Preparedness Week
Humboldt residents who got no tsunami test alert this week weren't missed; they were excluded. The targeted test covered only about 9,000 coastal-zone customers.
Six of Humboldt County's twelve tsunami warning sirens stayed silent during a previous system test, and that same incomplete-notification pattern resurfaced this week when multiple residents reported their phones never buzzed during Tsunami Preparedness Week, even as National Weather Service officials said the exercise succeeded in its targeted area.
The gap has a specific cause. NWS meteorologist Ryan Aylward said Humboldt County ran a deliberately focused exercise rather than a countywide alert, aimed at communities already inside designated tsunami zones around Humboldt Bay and the south end of the Eel River Delta. "That test reached, what I have been told, around 9,000 customers, and it was a success for that area," Aylward said.
Anyone outside those zones was not in the target audience. NWS officials also chose not to use the live warning code, because real tsunami warnings have been issued along the North Coast before and officials wanted to avoid triggering genuine alarm. A test code went out over weather radio instead, with phone alerts sent only to certain jurisdictions.
The explanation landed unevenly for residents who had no idea the test was geographically limited. "I usually get the alert on my ohone....didn't get one," Emily Scoles wrote on KRCR's Facebook post. Nicole Childers read the story more literally: "Key words in article 'certain jurisdictions also received phone alerts' so not everyone gets the alerts."
County officials are now checking whether alerts that were sent actually reached recipients. Representatives are following up with Everbridge, the messaging platform used for phone notifications, to determine exactly how many messages were delivered.
The siren network carries its own documented weaknesses. The Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group has reported that only half of Humboldt's twelve tsunami sirens and half of Del Norte's six activated in a previous test. The group offered a plain explanation: "Our sirens are old and the damp coastal conditions aren't kind to electronics." In one documented case, a cable broadcast interruption began at 11 AM during a test and ran more than eight hours while officials made repeated attempts to reach Suddenlink, unable to find anyone with the authority to lift the test message.
Residents who received nothing this week and want to confirm enrollment can call the National Weather Service at 707-443-6484. NOAA weather radios have activated automatically in past exercises and remain a reliable backup. Civil Air Patrol planes have also broadcast audible alerts over Humboldt and Del Norte Counties on test days; the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group documented one such signal reaching a hiker in Prairie Creek who had no cell service at all.
"Don't rely on a single way of getting information," the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group has noted. "There is always a chance that it won't work.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
