For me, news about the major earthquake that struck Alaska July 21 first arrived via Twitter. A tweet from Seattle meteorologist Morgan Palmer of KIRO TV said simply “Upgraded to 7.8 #tsunami Warning for the Aleutians.”
It was followed with a slightly more ominous sentence: “No warning or advisory yet for the U.S. mainland/Canada/Hawaii but more word shortly. #wawx”
I pretty much stopped reading at 7.8, and didn’t really notice that this was Mr. Palmer’s second, at least, tweet on the event. I knew that this was a major earthquake and after some quick searching, determined that the depth posted, just eight miles, was conducive to a high tsunami potential.
When it comes to breaking news of this type, it is really hard to beat the Twitter platform. Not only are experts such as Mr. Palmer weighing in immediately, so are people directly affected by the earthquake.
It is a recipe for information overload, but pure adrenalin to news junkies. Count me among them.
In any case, I swung into action with my computer, around 11:30 p.m., attempting to learn as much as I could in a few minutes. Some of the highly informative tweets I encountered I immediately retweeted (my practice is to always add a comment or additional fact to anything I retweet so I can track its activity).
From tracking earthquakes in the past I knew that the final outcome, whatever it might be, would likely not be known for a few hours. With earthquakes in the Aleutian Islands, any tsunami action would not reach say Vancouver Island for around three hours. However, warnings and advisories need to get out quickly, ideally within minutes of the main earthquake event.
As I began ploughing my way through reams of tweets, it was clear there was tremendous interest in the earthquake, mostly from U.S.-based Twitter users, but also from here in B.C.
I also knew I needed some official information, beyond the anecdotal content in most tweets. Fortunately, there is a wealth of such data. In the very early days of the internet, even before there was such a thing as the World Wide Web, earthquake data was already being made accessible to those wanting it.
For this particular earthquake, perhaps the single most useful resource was the easy to remember tsunami.gov, a site operated under the broad umbrella of the United States Department of Commerce, within which we find NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Weather Service.
On the tsunami.gov web page one can quickly amass a lot of relevant and helpful information. The location of the earthquake, its magnitude, and its depth, are available within minutes of an event. It was here that I turned within moments of seeing the first tweet about the Alaska earthquake. The magnitude and depth in this case were both alarming. The map already showed tsunami advisories spreading in both directions along the Aleutian chain from the land point nearest the epicentre. Resting the pointer on the earthquake location marker brought up an information box along with a link marked AK/BC/West Coast Info Stmt #1.
This is where the second resource comes into play, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which generates very specific warning and advisory bulletins. Here’s what it had to say shortly after the 7.8 magnitude quake, about regions beyond those already alerted with tsunami warnings.
For other U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America, the level of tsunami danger is being evaluated. Further information will be provided in supplementary messages.
Jackie Hendrix, who administers an earthquake early warning Facebook page with more than 10,000 followers, finds that B.C. emergency services tend to lag behind their American counterparts when it comes to warnings and advisories on the coast.
She notes that American tsunami warnings are broadcast through local radio and television, marine radio, wireless emergency alerts, NOAA Weather Radio and NOAA websites such as tsunami.gov. She goes on to point out they may also come through outdoor sirens, local officials, text message alerts, and telephone notifications.
As the hours passed following the Alaska earthquake, it was interesting to notice that some of my tweets were receiving in the thousands of views, the most seen being the one that pointed to the text of the first notification of a tsunami alert.
Around midnight Vancouver time came the first photographs from the closest land point to the epicentre. It showed a long line of cars headed away from the shoreline community. I shared that tweet and it too immediately drew more than a thousand views.
Twitter is really unparalleled when it comes to the need for information to be shared widely and rapidly. I found it a fascinating two hours that evening, which really only ended for me when Oregon and Washington States took down their tsunami advisories.
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